Rampion
by grace.lou.freebush
Summary: Dramione short story based off Rapunzel by the Brothers Grimm for The Mourning Madam's Once Upon a Time Dramione Fairy Tale Fest on AO3. Hermione is separated from Harry and Ron at the skirmish at Malfoy Manor, and to keep her properly imprisoned, Bellatrix locks her in a tower. What happens when Draco happens upon her, and how can she escape?
1. The Tower

Icy chills of fear coursed through Hermione's veins as Bellatrix Lestrange backhanded Ron across the face with a booming _smack_ that echoed in her cotton-filled ears.

"If she dies under questioning, I'll take you next," Bellatrix threatened. She continued on, though Hermione's brain tripped to keep up. That slap continued to repeat endlessly in her mind, and the phrase "if she dies" joined the loop as a high, keening ring filled up her head.

A fiery tug on her scalp recentered her, and belatedly, Hermione realized she had been cut loose from Ron, Harry, Dean, and the goblin. She was being pulled to the center of the opulent room by her long, tangled hair while the other captives were pushed unwillingly away by an invisible force. Greyback's wand was held firmly before him while he forced his prisoners out of the room.

Despair choked Hermione, and she bit her tongue hard enough to draw blood when she was released with a shove onto the ostentatious rug and her chin cracked against the ground before she could catch herself.

Not a moment later, a scream came unbidden from her lips as a million knives danced across her skin, sinking sharp points deep through her flesh and muscle until they pierced bone. The blades were simultaneously freezing cold and flaming hot. The fibres of the rug scratched the hypersensitive skin of her cheek as she was flayed alive. Every nerve in her body flashed and pulsed for an eternity.

Suddenly, all of the knives were gone. Peering down her nose, careful not to move her pounding head, Hermione half expected to find her blood pouring out of hundreds of puncture wounds along her arm and hand. But such wounds were conspicuously absent; her skin was flawless, save for the dirt that was perpetually caked into her cuticles and the lines of her knuckles.

Before she could move or even breathe, rough hands grasped her shoulders, shoving her bonelessly to her back. The cold, black eyes of Bellatrix stared madly back into hers, their noses a centimeter from brushing.

Her voice hissed, slithering scathingly into Hermione's ears, but she couldn't process the words. Bellatrix's face moved out of her sight, and she was met with the glittering crystals of the huge chandelier directly above her. Vaguely, she counted the candles, lit and casting orange glows that refracted infinitely in the cut glass dangling from the high ceiling.

The sound of tearing fabric cut the silence, and chill air wafted against the bare skin of Hermione's left arm. A heavy weight settled over her wrist. She didn't have long to be curious before sharp steel dug into her soft flesh.

Writhing against the witch hovering over her, another scream tore its way violently from her throat. Her cries of agony were met suddenly with great bellows from Bellatrix.

"YOU THIEVING LITTLE MUDBLOOD! ANSWER ME WHEN I SPEAK TO YOU, YOU UNGRATEFUL WRETCH!"

The sharp tugging in her forearm dulled to a throb. Hermione coughed on her inhale, gasping as she tried to focus on the woman in black. Answering her would end the torture. Answering her would stop the pain. Answering her would make everything better.

"I'm going to ask you again! Where did you get this sword? _Where?_" her tormentor shrieked.

"We found it - We found it - PLEASE!" But even as she answered, the unbearable boring into her arm returned, heedless of the way she begged and shook and cried. Searing liquid dribbled from her eyes and down her arm, fat twin trails of tears and blood scalding her skin as they tracked down.

"You are lying, filthy Mudblood, and I know it! You have been inside my vault at Gringotts! Tell the truth, _tell the truth!_"

Hermione's response turned into a high pitched babbling as the knife pressing into her flesh twisted. She tightly shut her eyes in the vain hope that it would alleviate her pain. Sparks of white light exploded behind her lids in tempo with the pulling, stabbing, pinching, tearing.

Through the physical agony, Bellatrix continued to shout at her, as if in a blinding rage. She was _Crucio_'d for another indefinite number of minutes, stinging needles raking down her body, burning coals shoved down her throat into her lungs, shocking wires electrocuting her nerves. She spasmed uncontrollably while she bled into the rug and wailed for relief.

Through the haze of pain, Hermione heard the witch say something about the goblin. Grasping for anything that could ground her, she latched onto that one word desperately.

"We only met him tonight! We've never been inside your vault…" While she released a shaky breath, an idea settled in her heavy mind. Maybe this was the answer Bellatrix was looking for. "It isn't the real sword! It's a copy, just a copy!"

The torture ended while Malfoy's father sent him to collect the goblin. Hermione shuttered great, heaving breaths, too relieved at the respite to consider how precarious her lie stood. Shivers, as ghost pains slinked through her marrow, rocked her body; minor convulsions seized her limbs in the aftermath of her torture.

"Getting comfortable?" Bellatrix cooed, punctuating her question with a jab of her wand.

Hermione wished she would pass out. Or die. Every bone in her body shattered into a billion pieces, from the smallest bone in her foot to the whole of her skull. A heavy weight like a boulder settled on her chest, compressing her down, down, down until all of her organs were squashed into the unyielding ground. Her vocal chords ached and rasped from such desperate overuse.

The curse was lifted, and Hermione rolled her heavy head to the side where she could just see the goblin gently caressing the sword they'd found.

_We found it! We didn't steal it! We didn't take it! We found it! We've never been in your vault! Please!_

Her ramblings earned her more fire and ice in her veins. More knives in her skin. More endless screaming. When the torture paused this time, Hermione was barely clinging to reality. She hardly perceived other, deeper voices shouting out.

A relatively painless burning in her scalp permeated her consciousness as she was hefted upright against a stiff body, her head forced back and held in place. A cold prick touched her neck. Her arm seared. The crystal chandelier winked down at her.

That was funny. She didn't remember the chandelier having large, round eyes before. She blinked back.

Sharp talons gripping her wounded arm yanked her to the side suddenly. It hurt. The chandelier was coming down to greet her.

A deafening shatter exploded in the room, crystal and candles and chain crashing about, ricotching around them.

Looking blankly across the wreckage, Hermione found Ron and Dobby. Harry was pulling the goblin out from under the chandelier. Expressive, piercing, helpless green eyes met her glazed, dull, hopeless brown ones. He was too far away. Bellatrix still had a tight hold on her injured forearm, her sharp nails biting into her ragged skin, and she was piled in a heap on the floor because her battered body wouldn't hold her. A flash of gleaming silver out of the corner of her eye, and Harry was turning on the spot, grabbing the goblin and the elf and _cracking_ out of Malfoy Manor in an instant.

Bellatrix's blade followed, and before the relief of its disappearance could sink into horror, the mad witch burst into hair raising cackles. Her insane mirth lasted less than a heartbeat before a terrible rage that could be felt as a cage around her heart shook the foundations of the manor.

Voldemort landed gracefully in a flash of black smoke and hatred. He stepped carefully over the shattered crystal, his flowing robes trailing elegantly behind him.

"What is the meaning of this?" His voice was an icy trickle, terrifying in the calmness. Hermione thought that she preferred Bellatrix's bellowing.

"You have interrupted my important business. Did I not tell you to call me for nothing less than _Harry Potter_?"

The chill in the room plummeted with each word uttered.

Hermione huddled in on herself to remain inconspicuous. She cradled her released arm against her chest and tucked her knees up to her chin. Besides herself, there were three Death Eaters, a Death Eater's wife, and an aspiring Death Eater werewolf. They were all bowed low to their master, and she hoped her curled body was forgotten in the corner.

"My Lord…" Bellatrix began, but she stopped abruptly as if her tongue had become fuzed to the roof of her mouth.

Wide eyed and too afraid to look away, Hermione watched Voldemort approach his most faithful servant, an almost endearing look to his snake-like countenance belying his fury. He trailed a long, pale finger gently along her jaw to the base of her chin where he tilted her face up to look him in his crimson eyes.

"Tell the truth, Bella." His high, breathy voice caressed his words while the two gazed into each other's eyes. It was sickening to watch, but she couldn't avert her stare, like watching one of Neville's potions boiling over in a glumpy, acidic mess.

"He was here," the witch finally gasped. She did not speak again, but some understanding seemed to pass between servant and master.

Everyone in the room collapsed at the same time, a nonverbal _Crucio_ striking each of them at once. Hermione flinched and tensed against the excruciating sensations striking her body. Varying pitches of screams echoed in the grand room. The purple walls shook. Or maybe that was Hermione's whole body jerking to escape the agony.

As she jolted along the ground, she pressed against the crystal and glass fragments scattered along the floor. Her blood welled out and smeared against everything she writhed against, staining the rug, soaking her robes, spilling onto the hardwood.

When he was satisfied, Voldemort turned to Hermione. His blood red irises captured her, effectively pinning her in place. "And how did you come to be here, at Malfoy Manor, Mudblood?" Visions of Harry gleefully exclaiming that Voldemort was abroad searching for that blasted Wand and breaking the taboo danced to the forefront of her mind. Her pointing her wand in her best friend's face and watching as it distorted. His long hair and growing beard made him look more like Sirius than Harry in the first place, but the swelling completed the disguise, stretching his distinguishing scar unrecognizably. Then as if in fast forward, the Snatchers descended, taking their wands, binding them back to back, asking for their names, Apparating them in front of the manor's main gates.

Anger sparked out of Voldemort at the realization that Harry knew of the Deathstick and of His search for it. Would he look for it too? Was this to be a race to the unbeatable wand? No, no. Harry was content with his own wand. And now that _He_ knew that it lay with that despicable wizard in his old home, Hogwarts, surely Harry must have known all along where it was. Yet he'd never reached out and taken it. It must still be safe. But He was running out of time if Harry knew He was searching…

"What of the sword? How did you come by a replica of that sword?"

Again memories poured forth from her mind as if they were movies projected from a list to flip through at the viewer's leisure. Ron, soaking wet and holding a sword, grinning roguishly at her in the entrance to the tent. Her, flying into a rage, pounding at his strong chest in remembered betrayal. Harry casting a Shield charm between her and Ron _with her own wand_ because his was broken.

Suddenly, the memory ended right as Ron began his feeble apology.

There was no time to waste. Harry could set out for his destination at any time.

"Leave the Mudblood. I will come back for her," Voldemort said before he left in the same flurry that he had arrived.

Relief could not come to Hermione's aching body. Death would have been welcome, but even that peace was denied to her.

Greyback limped off, whimpering and licking his wounds. Narcissa gathered Draco into her shaking arms and led him out of the room, probably to a safe place.

Bellatrix and Lucius glared at each other.

"If you had let me call the Dark Lord when I'd originally planned to!" Lucius shouted.

"It is an honor to be punished by our Lord, Lucius," she spat. "He has shown mercy where it was not warranted. The Dark Lord grants leniency where we fall short." She turned to Hermione. "Now, as for you. I know just what to do with you!"

Bellatrix roughly grabbed Hermione's arm, and with an ear shattering _pop_, Disapperated them.

Hermione hit the ground hard, jarring her sensitive body. Nausea rolled through her stomach, and violent coughing that escalated into dry heaving wracked her.

"Shut up, filth!"

More blinding pain until, at long last, everything faded to black.

* * *

She woke with a dribble of bile dried on her chin.

Her whole body ached, muscles tense and joints stiff. Camping and moving constantly weren't comfortable by any means, but usually she woke more refreshed. And at least on a camping bed.

"Harry?" she queried without opening her eyes. When her voice rasped, she attempted to clear her throat. Hot sandpaper rubbed down her esophagus, like she hadn't had any water in a long while or like she'd spent a long time screaming her lungs out at the boys. Her hand instinctively reached for her throat to massage away the discomfort. As her arm reached up, her elbow popped for probably the first time in her life. It felt like bone scraping across bone, like the cartilage had all been worn away overnight. The pop was loud in the silence, startling her.

"Owwwww," she complained, voice still hoarse. "Harry?" Opening her eyes, she found herself lying on her left side facing the stone wall of a circular room.

_The Gryffindor dorms? _She thought to herself in confusion. That didn't make sense. She had just been in the tent with Harry. Vaguely she remembered Ron coming back after leaving them for weeks.

_That's right. Maybe the boys are outside._ But that still didn't explain how she got to the Gryffindor tower.

Forcing herself to focus a little more, a harder feat than she expected due to the throb beating against the inside of her forehead, right between her eyebrows, she realized the room she was in was noticeably more bare than the dorm rooms she'd grown up in.

Pushing through the tenderness that assaulted her body, Hermione sat herself upright and scanned her surroundings.

The room was perfectly circular with a large, unadorned window with a wooden bench window-seat that appeared well worn in the center beneath it. The walls were similarly bare and made up of identical, large, rectangular, grey stone stacked neatly from floor to ceiling. An old, modest four poster bed was made but had obviously not been touched in many years based on the faded colours of the sheets and the layer of dust Hermione could see from two meters away. A stained and equally dusty ceramic toilet sat in the open across from the bed; no toilet paper could be seen to accompany the loo, and there was no sink. The stone floor was cold beneath Hermione's body, zapping her warmth and leaving a chill that permeated her bones. There was no carpet or rug or any other decoration in the room except for a strange pile of dark brown fur that trailed the circumference of the room. If she'd felt well enough to pace the diameter, Hermione gauged the room to be several footsteps - maybe six meters - across, not overly large, but not cramped either, due to the lack of furniture.

But most importantly… there was no door.

Panic bubbled in Hermione's chest as she started to realize she didn't recognize anything about this room or how she'd come to be there. Ignoring the sharp blasts of pain protesting against her movements, Hermione clutched her robes, patting her pockets in search of her wand in vain.

Slowly, ever so slowly, her reality sank in. Her mind warred with her as she racked her most recent memories. With a flinch, she understood why her brain fought her so much. A phantom pain snuck past the protective barriers her mind had formed around the last several hours. Her forearm seared, and a thousand knives stabbed her body before she could clamp down on the memory and seal it away again.

Flashes of dark, curly hair, gleaming crystal hanging from above, guilt-ridden, green eyes. Echoes of a tremendous slap, mad shrieking, and a high pitched and elongated scream of agony. Feelings of sharp tugging on her left arm, wet, hot streaks coursing from her eyes, unbearable tremors coursing her limbs.

Blankly looking down to her arm, she found her sleeve torn from wrist to shoulder, the black fabric flapping against her side as she moved. Her too-pale skin was bared, and all Hermione had to do to inspect her marred forearm was twist her wrist a bit. The movement pulled her tender skin, and Hermione immediately buckled over to dry heave after glimpsing the damage.

Whoever had brought her here - Bellatrix most likely - had not bothered to clean or dress her wounds. The inside of her normally bronze arm was completely coated in dark maroon, dried blood, some of the top layers flaking off. Set in the center of the macabre vision were deep lacerations. Some of them had scabbed up, raised from her usually smooth skin, while others were puckered away from the sides like canyons gorged into the plateau of her arm. The cuts were arranged deliberately, and now Hermione would always carry a label on her body.

_MUDBLOOD_

She retched sickly yellow acid as she read the letters. The bile burned her raw throat as an insult to her injuries.

When her stomach calmed, she shifted directly into soul crushing weeps that convulsed her whole body. Clutching her left wrist in her right hand, she held her mutilated flesh into the safety of her chest, careful not to let the tender wound brush against the fabric of her clothes. She mourned until more body wracking coughs assaulted her, and then she sobbed until her eyes grew dry and scratchy and the minor headache developed into full-fledged pounding.

After some indiscernible period of time, the room began to brighten. A strip of yellow light grew from the window, and through her sorrow, Hermione decided the window must face east. To distract herself, she picked herself up, bearing the pain in her body, and crept to the window. Her head felt so heavy, like the weight of her experiences were pulling her down physically as well as emotionally.

Lowering herself gently to the wooden bench, she discovered the opening had no glass. Peering out, she found herself mostly above the trees of a large forest. Beeches, elms, and oaks sprawled out for what she could only assume to be miles. The closest tree with any substantial height and girth was over a stone's throw away, and looking down gave Hermione vertigo. She was relieved to be sitting already, as otherwise her legs would have surely given out on her. With another bout hysteria threatening to overwhelm her, Hermione bravely gauged the distance down: at least three storeys. From what she could see, she was alone in a single tower in the middle of nowhere; she couldn't be any more of a helpless prisoner if she'd been stuck in a cell in Azkaban.

The sun peeked out over the edge of the horizon, the brightness temporarily blinding her. A spike of pain snapped through her skull, and she winced to save her retinas. Turning her back to the open window, Hermione allowed herself to collapse back into the frame, holding her eyes shut tightly.

"Mudblood!" That particular screech would forevermore be imprinted in her mind. But unfortunately even she could tell that it wasn't merely her subconscious pulling forth a memory with which to torment herself.

"Mudblood! Let down your hair!" The demand was hurled venomously from the base of the tower.

Besides the absurdity of such an order and her subsequent confusion as to its meaning, Hermione derived a perverse sense of control and satisfaction from denying the insane witch deliciously out of reach many meters below. She may be a prisoner, but she was no slave to another's will.

Or so she thought.

A soft, relaxing feeling seeped into her bones. The aches and twitches diminished into the fog. A calm contentment flowed through her.

_Let your hair down, _a whispered voice cajoled her. Without questioning the suggestion, and as if in conjunction with the hiss, she gathered the long lengths of her mane that sprawled throughout the round, stone room and dropped them tumbling out the window.

If her mind had been less empty, she might have marvelled at how long her hair had grown. As it was, the sickly sweet voice in her mind had another task for her.

_Pull your hair back up._

And so she did. It took her a few minutes, and the longer she took, the more demanding and shrill the voice became. Her muscles shook, but the protesting aches were dull, so she soldiered on and on until a pale witch with riotous black curls and expensive black robes and dark, angry eyes climbed over the ledge of the window and stepped down from the wooden bench.

Suddenly, the blanket of peace was yanked from her mind.

Hermione collapsed from both fatigue and acute soreness before Bellatrix could utter _Crucio_. That did not stop the witch from torturing her, though, and Hermione convulsed from the renewed sensations of knives and skewers and hot irons bearing down upon her weak flesh.

"You dare to defy me! I am your superior, you filthy ingrate!"

Hermione sobbed and wished for death. When the curse was lifted, she continued to tremble with the aftershocks while Bellatrix verbally abused her for not immediately following orders. She was promised that the more she rebelled, the more pain she would earn. Another wave of excruciating torment wrapped her until she screamed out that she would behave.

While she recovered, spasming uncontrollably on the tangles of hair haphazardly coiled beneath her, she listened to Bellatrix speak.

"The Dark Lord has asked me to keep you somewhere you can't escape. He is most displeased with my idiot of a brother-in-law." Merely speaking of Lucius Malfoy provoked uncontrolled magic to crackle around the witch while she paced the small room. "_I _shall not fail my master. Listen, wretch! The wards I have set up on the tower do not allow for Apparition or any other magical approach such as broomstick, so you cannot escape. I've charmed your hair to grow so that it is the only way in or out, and you _will_ comply to raise and lower me when I come on behalf of the Dark Lord. Besides myself, only my husband and our most loyal house elf know where you are. Do not speak to my elf; it's job will merely be to make sure you don't starve before this war is won. After that I will be permitted to kill you, and you will rot here forgotten like the filthy Mudblood you are."

The tremors had not abated, but new shivers joined them, running down her spine, as Bellatrix weaved despair into her mind. She had continued to pace, and her heels clicked ominously on the cold, stone floor while her voice burned Hermione's soul with her barely contained rage and frustration. She preferred to keep no prisoners, even if Hermione recalled Professor Dumbledore advising Harry that Bellatrix liked to "play with her food." Hermione had no illusions to the hopelessness of her situation.

She could only hope that she would be able to hold out and keep Harry's hunt for the Horcruxes hidden.

* * *

Hermione was left to her own devices after Bellatrix left. She had nothing to occupy her time, though, as the round room was barren of any type of entertainment. There were no books, no quills or ink or parchment, not even a brush for her to untangle her excessively long mane. Her body was too sore in any case, recovering from the continual torture over the last twenty-four hours, for her to put any effort into distracting herself from her situation.

She was without a wand or her little beaded bag - Hermione hoped Harry had been able to grab both of those items before he escaped with the others. Her mind and magical core were too exhausted to even attempt any sort of wandless magic, and her body was too tired to move, so she just lay on her pile of tresses and let unconsciousness wash blissfully over her.

She woke with a jerk some hours later to the high squeak of "Mudblood! Let down your hair, Mudblood!" The voice was not harsh enough to be Bellatrix, so Hermione hobbled over to the window in the dimness of the evening light to investigate.

Peering down, down, down Hermione could vaguely make out a tiny, pale body among the shadowy green grass at the base of her tower.

"There you is, Mudblood! Let down your hair! Mistress is having Punze feed the Mudblood prisoner, but Punze is having leave to leave if the Mudblood does not let down her hair in one minute."

The tiny, pale body with the high voice must be Bellatrix's house elf, Hermione decided. Without wasting a moment at the thought of food, Hermione gathered a mound of hair and dropped the end out the window. The curls and tangles made for a mess of knots and rat's nests hanging over the side of the tower. Still, it was long enough to brush the ground, and the elf grabbed a hold of a lock immediately.

"Pull me up!" she called, rather demandingly.

Tugging the elf up was both easier and harder than lugging Bellatrix. The house elf was much lighter than the tall witch, but Hermione didn't have the numbing luxury of the Imperious curse this time to ease the ache in her muscles. Before long, though, the little elf was scrambling through the open window and hopping down from the wooden bench.

She produced from inside her pillowcase uniform a soup bowl with a lid. With little flourish, she pulled the lid off with a quick release of steam, revealing a meagre dinner of rice and a single bread roll.

Hermione's stomach clenched and growled at the sight.

"Is this it?" She couldn't stop the question from popping out.

"The Mudblood will not speak to Punze," the elf sniffed, turning her rather long nose up and away with disgust. Hermione was too weary to object, so she gently took the bowl from the house elf.

Settling on the floor, her joints cracking painfully with the movement, Hermione first took the roll. It was soft and warm still, probably homemade in a batch leftover from the Lestranges' dinner. Punze had not provided silverware, so after she had finished the bread, Hermione used her fingers to scoop hot rice into her hungry mouth.

She tried not to think of how dirty her hands were or what exactly was caked under her nails. She just spooned clumps of rice quickly to avoid burning her fingers and tongue. The only positive things she could think about her meal was that it was edible and hot. Other than that it was bland, dry, and lacking in nutrition.

"I'm thirsty, Punze, may I have some water?" She had all but inhaled the measly meal, and now her tongue stuck uncomfortably to the roof of her mouth, her teeth, and her lips in its search for refreshing moisture. She may as well have not spoken a word for all the response she received. The little elf had her back to Hermione, inspecting the bed with distaste, muttering to herself in that high, nasally voice.

"The Mudblood sleeps on the ground like the dirty filth she is. Even Punze sleeps in her nest. The Mudblood does not deserve the magic she has stolen. Poor Mistress is being made to keep the Mudblood even when she wishes to kill her."

Punze was even worse than Kreacher, indoctrinated into the same rhetoric that told her she was nothing but a slave, that she wished to be less than witches and wizards and to do their bidding ceaselessly. Hermione had had a hard time reaching Winky and Kreacher with logic regarding the topic, but perhaps with time, she could sway Punze. It would take time, but it seemed she had an abundance of that. Time and hair and aftershocks of torture.

Noticing that Hermione had finished eating every grain of rice and crumb of bread, Punze snatched the bowl, reapplying the lid and dropping it in her pillowcase.

"Let down your hair, Mudblood," she demanded.

"Thank you for bringing me my food, Punze. I hope you have a good night." Hermione walked to the window, dragging her locks with her.

"The Mudblood is not to speak to Punze," was the only response the elf gave as she scurried down the tumble of tresses quick as a spider down her web.

Hermione watched her leave until she disappeared into the woods and a loud _pop_ indicated she had Disapperated back to her home. A wave of loneliness washed over Hermione, left in her tower without even a dragon to keep her company.

* * *

The next morning Hermione woke with less confusion but just as much soreness. She already could no longer remember how it felt to have a relaxed neck and back or joints that didn't creak as she moved.

The sunrise peaked through the open window, and Hermione slipped off the bed to watch the sun greet the forest from the well worn window seat. She found herself wondering who had had the misfortune of being locked up before her. Had the Lestranges always owned the strange tower? Or the Blacks? Was it always used as a solitary confinement dungeon? Or had it had some other less nefarious purpose at some point before Voldemort determined Malfoy Manor to be inadequate as a holding cell?

Hermione had never been the type to just sit and watch the sunrise or sunset. Her brain was always moving at one hundred thoughts a minute which left her little time to hold still and enjoy a moment for what it was. She formulated questions and answers in a heartbeat, ruminating on the ones she couldn't resolve immediately. She poured over books and tomes and texts endlessly. She planned and strategized and invented in any free time she found for herself.

This morning was no different. Hermione considered previous inhabitants; she thought of Harry and Ron and Dobby; she pondered possible escape routes.

When Bellatrix stepped out of the treeline, Hermione wondered how much torture her body could withstand before her mind broke. She contemplated Neville's parents while the witch in robes as black as her soul strode to the base of the tower.

"Mudblood!" She screeched unnecessarily. "Let down your hair!"

With a sigh Hermione gathered it up and dumped it down, vaguely hoping it would tumble down on top of her captor.

She found out, interspersed with mind numbing, blinding, and deafening pain, that Bellatrix and her husband were the only ones able to perform magic in the tower. Hermione thought Bellatrix had mentioned something about blood wards, but she'd been in the midst of near drowning at the time, and her focus had been directed more on breathing through the waterfall cascading from the ceiling over her face and less on hearing through the roaring and splashing in her ears. After her forced "cleansing shower," Bellatrix had _Scourgified_ her body and mouth until her sensitive skin was raw and red and abraded. She was left in a waterlogged heap on the floor, choking up water and coughing out wayward soap bubbles.

Punze offered her a goblet of water after her meagre meal of boiled potatoes. With one glance at the liquid, Hermione was heaving up her meal and flinging the goblet defensively out of the elf's hands and across the room into the wall. Her sinuses still ached and her throat still throbbed from the forced inhalation earlier that day. Punze somehow managed to look both smug and disdainful in one large-eyed, long-nosed expression, sniffing regally as she retrieved the metal cup, slithered back down Hermione hair, and left the Muggle-born with a noxious puddle of sick in the middle of the floor.

Her skin too hypersensitive to lie on the old, scratchy sheets, Hermione resigned herself to a long night leaning against the wall, hungry, hurting, and with a rancid taste in her mouth. She wished for her parents' dental practice where she could get her teeth cleaned and flossed and minty fresh; she wished at the very least for a toothbrush. With a burp, a bitter bubble leftover from the intensive scouring charm blew up and out of her mouth with a slight tickle. Hermione giggled hysterically when it washed away the sour taste of vomit from her tongue.

Seated in the same spot on the wall through the whole night, she was still awake when Bellatrix came the next morning.

When Hermione heard the call for her hair, she swallowed a groan. Using the wall to hold her weight as she got up, she persevered through the sharp popping of her knees and hips. Waddling tenderly to the window, she took a deep, centering breath before letting down her locks. Between being _Imperio_ed for rebelling and doing as asked, Hermione chose to acquiesce. She was picking her battles, and she preferred to keep the miniscule feeling of freely choosing something, anything, even the acceptance of her own torture, for herself.

Hermione wished that she could shut off her mind throughout the next hour or so. Thinking back on Neville's parents, she envied that they were able to escape inside their brains while she was left to feel the agony of electrical currents shooting up the soles of her feet. The static charge tingled in her bones to the roots of her teeth as she clenched her jaw down against the excruciating sensation. Groans muffled their way from between the small gaps of her grinding molars while shrieks of joyous laughter bounced in her ears.

Her muscles seized with the application and release of the electric current throughout her body. If she hadn't been so dehydrated, Hermione was positive she would have been covered in a sheen of sweat and a puddle of her own piss. As it were, she didn't even have the moisture to spare for wetting her eyes with tears.

Then she awoke in the early evening, several hours after Bellatrix abandoned her, to Punze ordering her hair down. She ate her bland rice and tended to her injuries as best as she could - which really meant she fretted over her new bruises and scabs with no real way to heal her broken body and battered soul. She remained conscious all night, tracking the moon and constellations in the sky, trying to remember her star charts from Hogwarts and mentally track the dates since she'd been captured.

Her life slowly became a routine as her sleep schedule shifted with her new reality. Bellatrix always came at dawn for a rousing morning torture. She rarely actually interrogated Hermione, revelling instead in the ecstasy of sadism. The days were never the same, though the Cruciatus Curse was becoming a constant bedfellow. Other than her favourite method of torture, Bellatrix seemed to prefer keeping things dynamic with varying spells and potions and tools.

If Hermione could bear it when Bellatrix left, she would drag herself to the bed to collapse into a convulsing slumber. She wasn't convinced she would ever be rid of the shaking in her bones, twitching in her muscles, and tremors in her hands. Absentmindedly, she wondered if she would even be able to grasp a wand if she survived long enough to touch one again.

After a sometimes fitful, sometimes deep rest, she would let Punze up to harass her and feed her tasteless, non-nutritious meals. When Punze left for the night, Hermione would sit at the window and watch the sunset, and count the new flowers blooming beneath her, too far to reach, and sing Muggle nursery rhymes, and repeat the Tales of Beedle the Bard from memory, and run her fingers through her long, tangled curls, and dream up new ways to finally escape. On her low nights, she wished on the first evening star (even if it was a planet) for a charming prince to rescue the Mudblood princess from her tower. On her lowest nights, she wished only for her very own dragon to keep her company and safe like the princesses in her bedtime stories had had.

Then, one day, her routine changed again.


	2. The Prince

"Granger? Hermione, let down your hair!"

Two thoughts struck her at the same time. The first was that she couldn't remember how long it had been since she'd heard her name - surname _or_ given. The second was that the voice was distinctly male, the tone and timber lower than she'd heard in equally as long.

She came to her window, investigating and complying. Peering down as she lowered her locks, she found a fair complexion encased in dark robes. He seemed lithe, but the angle and distance made determining height impossible. She'd just have to wait until she pulled him up the tower.

He was even heavier than Bellatrix, to Hermione's shoulders' dismay. Her muscles screamed their opposition to the additional work, but she grit her teeth and bore the pain.

Before long, but not soon enough in her biceps' opinion, a tall, blond man was climbing through her window.

"Malfoy?" She questioned, taking in the familiar angular features and fine, blond fringe while he surveyed the room.

"Granger, it _is_ you!" He sounded relieved for some unfathomable reason. His bright, grey eyes took in Hermione's face, drinking in each feature like he'd never seen her before.

"Salazar, what's happened to you?"

Hermione hadn't had a mirror since Bill and Fleur's wedding, but she did not doubt she looked horrendous. Her lips were constantly chapped and peeling from mild dehydration, as she was only offered a cup of water every other meal. The left side of her face still felt tender and swollen from some nonverbal Stinging Hex-Burning Hex combination spell that Bellatrix had unleashed upon her. Her robes were in tatters from constant wear and weeks of abuse. They hung off her frame due to her malnutrition, and she would be surprised if her face didn't show the gauntness of starvation as well. She never could get rid of the constant twitching, either. They were getting so bad that sometimes Bellatrix's spells missed or grazed her when they weren't aimed directly at her torso.

Hermione kept her mouth shut out of both habit and principle. One never assimilated to torture; it never got easier or more bearable. But she'd never once betrayed Harry, spoke of the Horcruxes - or the Elder wand he was so obsessed with, even if it was all rubbish for a children's tale. Even for any smaller, unrelated questions, Hermione made a point to hold her tongue. Occasionally, she would slip up and agree with a leading question between bouts of Cruciatus Curse, but typically Bellatrix was careful not to ask those types of enquiries because it became obvious when Hermione gave up false information for a break in torture.

"Granger?"

Hermione eyed him, but refused to verbally respond. He was clean, his robes expensive, and his hair cropped short with just a little fringe dangling over his brow. She'd never felt like such the opposite to him before that moment. She hadn't had a proper wash in what seemed like a lifetime. Her clothes were filthy and worn. Her mane was longer than ever and as curly and wild as his was fine and tamed. He was free while she was trapped indefinitely. He was Pureblood, and she was Mudblood.

"Are you okay?"

His silver eyes were bright in the darkening room. Twilight was falling quickly, and with no candles or torches the room grew dark early. Still, Draco's eyes seemed to glow like twin moons in the night sky.

"What do you want?" She asked instead, ignoring his question.

"To help you."

She only just contained a snort. "Excuse me if I don't believe you."

Draco looked reflexively at his left forearm. It was covered with his robe sleeve, but they both knew what marred his skin beneath the cloth. Hermione's bare arm was a direct antithesis, the still healing scar pale on her russet skin.

"I swear I'm not here to hurt you."

When Hermione remained apprehensively quiet, watching his movements warily, he continued, "I found this tower weeks ago. I could hear you telling stories. I remembered some of them from my childhood, but some I'd never heard before. For so long, I couldn't figure out how to reach you to find out if you really were who I thought you were. Then, today, I came early and heard my aunt's house elf call for you to let down your hair. I'm not going to hurt you."

"I'm afraid I'm not able to trust you."

His explanation overwhelmed her sensibilities. The last time Hermione had seen him, he had barely acknowledged them, denying recognizing Harry, Ron, and herself after hardly a glance at the group. Harry was the only one she might have believed - what with his overgrown hair, dark, patchy scruff on his chin and jaw, missing glasses, and cheeks and forehead puffy and swollen into odd proportions - had he not been tied between the distinguishing faces of Ron and herself. Still, Draco hadn't been all that convincing in his refutation, which had consequently landed her in the center of his drawing room, memorizing the chandelier and writhing against the slur being carved into her flesh.

"What can I do to prove to you that I only want to help?"

"Is that a trick question?" Hermione exclaimed bewilderedly. "If I answer that, you'll do it purely to gain my trust, regardless of your true intentions."

He was silent, deliberating and rationalizing his next move. The shadows grew longer, and the golden light dimmed outside, where free beings were allowed to settle into their homes for the night, tucked neatly into their beds for a restful sleep.

Absentmindedly, Draco pulled out his wand. Hermione tried not to flinch, but a treacherous tremor rocked up her spine regardless.

"_Lumos_."

The tip of his wand did nothing, and he gaped astoundedly at it. Trying again, he repeated the spell more forcefully.

"What the hell? That's a first year charm!" Frustration leaked into his voice.

"Hmm. I wondered if that was true or if it was just my not having a wand. Bellatrix says there's blood wards or something of the like and only she and Rodolphus can perform magic in the tower."

"Are you serious?" It was a deadpan look, boring into her eyes, daring her to lie to him. A countenance that once would have rattled her now no longer frightened her. That morning she'd stared directly into the point of Bellatrix's wand as she mutilated her flesh and kept her hovering right at the edge of consciousness so she couldn't pass out from the pain. The grey eyes of a mostly-verbal bully (whose worst jinx he'd ever used on her merely made her teeth grow until she could get them fixed to a proper size) could never scare her again.

"Do you really think I wouldn't have perfected a wandless spell to escape by now if my magic wasn't suppressed in here?"

In the dark, Draco's alabaster skin flushed like a shadow up his neck and into his cheeks.

"I suppose if anyone could figure out how to escape a three storey tower with no doors or stairs or wand, you could."

That sounded suspiciously like a compliment. She decided to ignore it rather than obsess indefinitely on what he meant and his purpose for saying it.

"Yes, well, the only way in or out is by my hair, and there's nothing suitable for me to loop it around to climb down myself."

Draco seemed at a loss. It was growing too dim to make out his features anymore, and the dark was making Hermione uncomfortable. At least when Bellatrix came the sun was up, and she could see her adversary. She took little comfort in the fact that Draco could do no more magic than she could.

"I want to help you," he finally said. This time he sounded more certain of his words. Hermione wondered if the repetition made him more or less believable.

"Would you free me?" she challenged. "I need to get back to Harry..." If there was one thing Hermione knew, it was that Harry still lived. Bellatrix would have come up boasting and then promptly killed her the moment Voldemort officially won the war.

Bitterness crept into Draco's voice. "Of course you'd just run right back off to Potter."

Indifferent, Hermione refused to dignify that with a response. Where else would she go? Back to the manor with Draco? Trade in one cage for another? Unlikely. Besides Harry needed her to help with the Horcrux hunt, not that she would ever mention that to Draco.

Maybe his whole plan was to lure her into a false sense of security. She'd spoken more to him in twenty minutes than she had to Bellatrix in the whole of her time trapped here.

She found she craved the human contact, the conversation, the distraction from her own mind. Another voice to fill her ears. Words that meant something and that she didn't have to tune out to keep her sanity. She could have wept with relief at the realization that he wasn't a hallucination or a conjuration her mind had created so she didn't have to talk to herself. This relief was overshadowed nearly immediately with despair as she remembered she couldn't trust him.

Suddenly, exhaustion engulfed Hermione. Weariness dripped into her veins and her legs trembled with more than just Cruciatus Curse aftershocks. Keeping the shadowed outline of Draco in her sights, she retreated to the far wall. Using the sturdy stone to hold her weight, she slid down to the ground bonelessly.

Dragging the end of her long tresses into her lap, she began to absentmindedly comb her fingers through the tangles, pulling them apart one by one and separating the locks and curls neatly.

Draco remained quiet, and as the fatigue of the day settled over her, Hermione fell back on her usual survival tactics. Speaking to herself, she retold a tale her father had made up for her as a bedtime story when she was a child.

She'd always loved stories with magic and daring adventures. Her mother read her books and plays, changing her voice for each character, but her father was the one who encouraged her imagination, weaving fanciful tales out of thin air when she was supposed to be winding down for sleep. Even when she begged for him to tell her the same story again, he always tweaked it, changing the plot or the characters in some way to keep it fresh and new. There was always something that could be improved on, he'd always tell her.

So tonight she put her own twist on one of her favourites - in his memory. She dearly hoped Wendell and Monica were safe somewhere far away from wars and torture and needing children's stories to drown out fear and chase away the monsters in the dark.

So immersed in the story, she hardly registered when she heard the soft movement of shoes on stone or the squeak of the springs in the bed. Draco must have sat down and made himself comfortable to listen to her fairytale. Without faltering she continued aloud, deepening her voice when the knight spoke to the fair, magical maiden (she was always sunkissed with riotous curls in her father's stories) and exclaiming loudly when he fought against the evil queen's henchmen with a clashing of swords. No matter how hopeless the odds seemed, though, good always prevailed at the end when bravery and friendship overcame hatred and selfishness.

Sometime before dawn, Draco murmured a thank you and slipped quietly down her hair.

* * *

The next evening, Draco came back, bidding for Hermione to let down her hair. Sighing to herself, she debated cooperating. She doubted he would use an Imperious Curse to force her, and she suspected Bellatrix was not aware of nor would she approve of his coming there. But, as he persistently remained calling her name over and over, reminding her that she wasn't some innominate, Mudblood prisoner of war, the lure of an opportunity for human interaction planted itself in her soul and grew and grew.

In the end the temptation for a companion was as overpowering as clinging vines swallowing a cottage, and she lowered her tresses to him.

Grunting as she pulled him up, though, she greeted him with a sneer to cover up her gasping breaths and the sheen of perspiration at her temples and neck.

"For your information, you're too heavy to lug up every day." Hermione put on her swottiest attitude.

He scowled right back at her tone.

"Being deliberately rude isn't going to make me leave. You just brought me up on your own volition, and I'm not falling for your bad attitude." He huffed dramatically, a spoiled pout forming on his lips.

"Perhaps I am just curious as to why you came here in the first place." She sniffed, doing an unnervingly accurate impersonation of Punze's self-righteous nose in the air.

Draco chuckled under his breath, but Hermione ignored him.

"I brought you something."

Despite her best efforts, Hermione's intrigue was piqued. Turning back to face him, she peered at the small item in his hand.

"What is that?" she demanded, her mood not improving with the gift he proffered. "Does your father use that to stroke his golden silk hair one hundred times every day to make it shine?" She rolled her eyes to go with her caustic tone. Held in Draco's palm was a small boar bristle brush. The handle appeared to be either well shined pewter or silver, and the bristles were dense and short in the oval paddle. "That's going to do shit on my hair. I need a good comb with strong, wide teeth to make a dent in these tangles."

"You can be a real bitch, you know?" A grimace twisted his lips into an embittered expression.

"That's rich, coming from you."

"I'm just trying to help you! Salazar, what is your fucking problem?"

"I'm trapped in a tower, and I'm tortured every day! That's my problem!" she exclaimed, completely gobsmacked that he would ask such a thing. In the heat of the moment, Hermione forgot to not directly answer his question, so she moved on quickly. "And I never asked for your help!"

Merlin, it felt good for Hermione to release some emotion in a way that didn't involve weeping. Magic rolled under her skin, but it had no outlet in the warded room. Instead she focused the pent up energy out her mouth in spiteful screams at the only person around on whom she could take out her frustrations.

"Bloody hell, witch! I'm not here to fucking torture you with a brush. I'm trying to be nice, but you're making it really fucking hard!" he countered, rising to meet her fury despite his earlier insistence that he wouldn't be affected by her attitude.

She opened her mouth, ready to wind up for one of her lectures. However, something he said gave her pause before she could formulate her retort.

"Did you just call me a witch?"

He was panting heavily from wrangling his anger, but a flabbergasted expression crept onto his face at her abrupt shift in tone and subject.

"Well, you are one, aren't you?"

Looking at her forever healing arm, she whispered, "Depends on who you're talking to, I suppose." Bellatrix adored ripping back open her name badge of a wound to remind her of just who she was and just where her place in the new world order was. She'd lost more blood and consciousness to those cuts than all of the rest of her punishments combined.

"I'm talking to _you_." He was firm, and Hermione could feel his gaze trained on her, pulling her attention away from her despondent, spiralling thoughts and the scabs that spelled out that awful slur on her body.

She looked up, catching his pale, steel eyes with her dark, mahogany ones. Emotion swam between them, assurance and honesty from Draco's and skepticism and hesitance in Hermione's.

"How can I trust you?" Her voice was a plea, imploring him to tell her anything that could make her believe him.

"I don't know how to rescue you, like the knights and princes in some of the stories you've told, but I will do what I can to ease your time here. And..." Here he took a deep, shuddering breath, bracing himself for his next statement. "And I'm sorry. Truly, I am sorry for everything. From calling you names I didn't fully understand, to all of the jinxes and hexes. I'm still learning, but if there's one thing I know now, it's that your blood is no different from mine, and this is not the life and world I want anymore."

His eyes never left hers through his apology; they flicked back and forth between hers as he poured his heart out earnestly and gauged her expression.

A frozen tightness behind Hermione's sternum melted with his admission and remorse. Somewhere in the back of her mind, a small tinkling thought begged her that this was a trap, that the pain of broken trust would overpower anything Bellatrix could ever inflict upon her. Pixies in her gut riotted as her mind warred with her intuition. Her stomach grumbled.

Her dinner that afternoon had been the normal fare, a single, plain jacket potato. Two days ago, Punze had brought a small sliver of roast beef and two roasted potatoes - Hermione had completely lost track of the days of the week but thought it must have been a Sunday to warrant such a feast - but she hadn't had a single vegetable or leafy green in the whole of her time in the tower. Often, she spent her mornings staring longingly at the purple, bell-shaped flowers that were blooming more and more frequently at the base of the tower. Daily, she could watch the stalks shoot up and up, the small, violet dots multiplying overnight to carpet the grass in the clearing.

Lowering her gaze to break the spell Draco had placed on her contentious thoughts, Hermione stepped to the window. Leaning against the pane, she surveyed the miniature field below. The setting sun behind the tower cast golden light upon the grass and wildflowers. A long shadow lengthened across the ground from the bottom of the tower, stretching out, reaching for the edge of the treeline. The tip never quite touched, but every evening, Hermione could oversee its never ending struggle, like Sisyphus doomed to roll his stone uphill for eternity, like she yearned to leave her tower always, so close to freedom, but never close enough to escape her prison.

"The little bell flowers in the clearing are called rampion," she sighed, almost to herself. "The leaves used to be eaten as a salad and the roots boiled as a sweet vegetable before spinach and radishes became more commonplace and cultivated more easily." She chanced a look at Draco in the dimming light. He was focused intently on her, his expression closed but not angry. He still held the silly brush loosely in his hand. His white-blond locks gleamed in the receding light as if it could glow on its own.

Suddenly shame bruised her ego, flushed her skin. Draco's hair must be as baby fine as his father's and, though Hermione was less experienced with the Malfoy matriarch, she had little doubt, his mother's. The brush had likely truly been a peace offering made in honest benevolence. For someone with naturally low maintenance locks, he must have considered specifically her needs, even if, in reality, the offered gift was not as useful as he'd intended.

She recalled how his keen gaze had not wavered the night before while she picked through her tangles and recited her bedtime story. He must have tucked that obsevation away and ventured to aid her in the best way he knew how.

That soft-bristled brush was still going to be a bigger hindrance than a help, but she supposed she could throw him a bone.

"If you bring me some of the rampion that I have craved for so long to eat, I will forgive you. Your aunt is starving and dehydrating me - not enough to kill me but enough to keep me weak and easy to control."

"I could bring you anything from the manor, meat, cheese, bread, any type of vegetable you desire. But you want this weed instead?" Draco asked, perplexed as he approached Hermione slowly, careful not to step on the lengths of her hair trailed along the floor.

"Yes," she nearly sobbed. "I've wanted it so much I feel like I could die by watching it all grow just out of my reach."

Clearly uncomfortable with her near hysterics, Draco attempted to sooth the witch. He reached out a hand to rub her shoulder but clearly rethought the action and lowered his arm before he could make contact.

"Okay, okay. I'll bring you some tomorrow, I swear. The leaves as a salad and the roots boiled, yes?" When she nodded, rubbing her dry eyes with the heel of her hands, he continued with his placating voice. "Come sit on the bed. Why don't you tell me a story in the meantime, and when I leave, I'll gather the rampion to prepare for you tomorrow."

Hermione nodded again and allowed him to steer her to the edge of the bed with a hand ghosting behind her back.

When she settled, her back propped against the headboard and her tired and aching legs sprawled out across the mattress, she gathered a handful of curls, carded her fingers through them like a comb, and began one of the many tales of Robin Hood, the noble who fell from riches while out fighting a war and came back, changed, to steal from the wealthy to provide for the poor, fight against the evil sheriff and prince, and rescue the fair Maid Marion from a loveless marriage and a life of pain and solitude.

The room had fallen completely into darkness and had started to lighten again as Hermione came to the end of her tale. Coming out of the trance she always seemed to fall into while telling her stories, she found Draco sitting on the window seat.

"Hurry!" She belted suddenly. "Bellatrix will be here soon! You must leave now!"

Throwing the end of her hair unceremoniously out the window, brushing her shoulder against Draco's in her haste, she practically shoved him out after her falling locks.

"I'll be back tonight," he promised as he hooked a leg out the window and grasped her hair like a rope, "with your rampion."

Their faces were centimeters apart when he paused to gaze at her for a moment. Hermione was holding her hair at her left shoulder to ease the tension on her scalp, and their noses nearly brushed.

"I'll be back," he whispered again, the exhale of his words mingling with her breath. And then he was sliding quickly down her hair, occasionally rappelling off the tower wall on his way down. When he reached the bottom, she watched him bend to unearth several of the plants growing in the soil along the edge of the tower before dashing into the forest to the right. He faded into the shadows just as Bellatrix stepped out from the trees before her.

Bellatrix must have noted that Hermione's hair was already down, seemingly waiting for her, because when Hermione finished pulling her up, the witch cackled.

"Eager, today, are we, Mudblood?" Then she turned her bent wand on Hermione, and the bliss of the night evaporated with her screams of agony echoing off the stone walls and the burden of one more secret she needed to keep hidden from the loyal Death Eater.

* * *

Draco kept his promise that evening, calling out for her hair almost as soon as she'd retrieved it all after Punze's departure. She was so sore, though, even after her typical afternoon nap and her dinner of rice and beans, that even the thought of her rampion salad was not enough to bolster her enough to pull Draco up.

He was tall and, despite having a lithe frame, must have been solid muscle beneath the heavy, rich fabrics of his robes. Hermione was still shaking uncontrollably from her extended time under the Cruciatus Curse and thirty minutes total of being forced to hold a handstand stress position that morning; she couldn't fathom having to muscle such a heavy load up ten meters. A quarter of her meal had ended up on the floor, and she'd struggled to capture each grain so not a piece was wasted while Punze tutted in the background.

"Come on, Granger. I brought your salad and boiled roots and even some water, but you have to pull me up."

Half hanging out the window to see him better, Hermione sobbed. "I can't! I can't! Not today. It hurts too much toda-."

"Hermione!" He called, interrupting her with a soothing tone. "It's okay, Hermione. Just let down your hair."

Choking back her tears, Hermione did as he bid, knowing all the while she'd never be able to lift him off the ground, let alone all the way up the tower. Once her tresses were lowered, though, Draco did not grab a hold to be pulled up.

Instead he pulled something out of his pocket so small that Hermione couldn't see what it was. He retrieved his wand and enlarged the object. It must have had a handle because after it was a size he seemed satisfied with, he tied a lock of her hair to it.

"You can pull it up now!" He told her, shouting so she could hear. "I can stay down here tonight to listen."

When her hair had been pulled back up, she inspected the item tied into it. It was a large flannel with the four corners tied together to make a sack. Carefully undoing the knots with her unsteady fingers, Hermione finally unwrapped her gifts. She found two food containers, an ornate, cut glass stemless goblet, and a wide toothed comb that appeared to be made of bone.

So overwhelmed with emotion and thankfulness, Hermione could only stare at it all. The salad was crisp and green with finely shredded carrots and cherry tomatoes tossed in with the leaves. The boiled rampion roots were white as snow and still steaming, and she even had a silver fork tucked into the container. The goblet held fresh, cool water smoothly in the crystal bowl. It defied gravity so that not a single drop was spilled, no matter how she held it, unless the rim was pressed against her lips for her to gulp it down. There must have been a replenishing charm on the cup, too, because no matter how much water she sucked down, it never ran dry.

The salad was sweet and refreshing; the roots were nutty and filling. Hermione had to force herself to pace her bites, knowing she would make herself sick if she rushed too quickly.

Guilt gnawed at her gut for leaving Draco at the bottom, but even after eating her fill and quenching her thirst, she did not have the strength to bring him up. Instead, she sat on the worn spot of the window seat, let her hair fall, and began to recite a story Draco would recognize, "The Warlock's Hairy Heart."

It was a simple tale that Hermione had easily memorized during her hours pouring over _The Tales of Beedle the Bard_ because of its similarity to _Beauty and the Beast_. She thought that maybe she would tell the Muggle version, too, but when she reached the final, somber lines, she heard Draco's voice from below.

"Cautionary tales, really, Granger? Bit late for those, I would think." Sarcasm dripped from his words, the lazy drawl clear despite the distance.

Hermione _hmph_ed petulantly to herself before calling back down to him.

"No one forced you to stay. Besides, it's not my fault if you identify with the warlock."

To Hermione's surprise, she heard a quiet chuckle from below.

"As I said, Granger, it's a bit late for cautionary tales."

"Should I be worried about you cutting out my heart?" Her sardonic reply carried down to him.

"Only if you plan on asking me to prove my loyalties have changed." The bark of laughter that followed was decidedly unamused.

"It's a metaphor, anyway," she called back, rolling her eyes. "There wasn't really a warlock that cut out his own heart." To herself she continued, "Just like Death didn't _really_ give any three brothers gifts to overcome dying."

"No, but that doesn't mean the story is any less relevant. I'm sure by now, you've realized there's little a Dark wizard is unwilling to dabble with to reach his ends."

Hermione thought of Voldemort's Horcruxes and wondered if Draco was aware of them. Knowing a human could split his soul into so many parts, suddenly, removing one's own heart seemed less farfetched.

They spent the last of the dark night debating the finer points of the tale, discussing other retellings (even _Beauty and the Beast_ which had many alterations being a Muggle tale) and their similarities and differences, deliberating on the meanings of the symbolism and metaphors peppered throughout. Hermione hadn't had such a rousing conversation with someone other than her mother in perhaps her whole life.

When the sun kissed the horizon, bathing the clearing in pinks and oranges, Hermione went to drop the things Draco had given to her back down to him. But as she held them over the edge of the window, Draco stopped her.

"Keep the comb and cup. I've placed Notice-me-not charms on them, so you can use them while I'm not here without my aunt discovering them. Staying hydrated helps with recovering after extended exposure to the Cruciatus Curse," he said, knowingly.

When she retrieved her hair after Draco had faded away into the trees, she found the ends brushed and perfectly detangled.

* * *

Through the coming weeks, Hermione could feel a warmth grow inside her timed perfectly with the setting sun. The mornings became unbearably bitter and cold as the blond climbed down her newly woven plaits, carrying empty bowls and Muggle torches in his arms. Frequently, she begged him not to leave her to his aunt, to take her with him.

They spent the evenings trading stories. Often, Draco would bring storybooks from his own childhood containing dozens of fairytales Hermione had never had the chance to learn. Other times she would retell Brothers Grimm and Hans Christian Andersen and various Muggle folklore from memory.

She'd been startled when Draco easily picked up Romeo's lines when she'd begun another, different Bard's tale. He informed her flabbergasted countenance that Shakespeare had been a wizard hiding his magic to pose as a Muggle, laughing at her charmingly all the while.

Hermione paused, drinking in the agreeable way his eyes squinted with his unabashed mirth. Joy suited his fine, aristocratic features, she thought to herself.

When they finished their read through, Hermione commented that whatever plan they came up with to rescue her, it should be less complicated than drinking Draught of Living Death and hoping it had been prepared correctly.

Draco remained steadfastly quiet, the smile slipping from his lips. He never entertained her plans of escape. He was increasingly sour that she still intended on meeting back up with Harry, growing even more cross when it became apparent that the reason for her single mindedness was being resolutely kept from him. And he was unwilling to potentially run away with her, determined not to voice a change in allegiance as he'd mentioned so long ago, during that third night together when their distance from each other had been as physical as it was emotional.

It all came to a head several mornings later.

"My life isn't a stroll down Diagon Alley, either, you know!" Draco shouted at her, fed up with her continuous nagging as he made to disembark to the free world.

"At least you're free and not trapped in some God forsaken tower for the rest of your life!" She was exhausted from watching him leave her in the infancy of the morning, sneaking away like she was an object he felt ashamed about associating with. Especially when she ached to have him at her side, to feel his fingers trail through her locks as he entwined intricate plaits into the softness of her curls. She still used the bone comb despite her hair no longer tangling as it had in the beginning months of her entrapment.

His agency to leave burned her where a comforting warmth usually filled her soul. To hide the tears that welled and fought to escape the confines of her eyes, she lashed out angrily at him. Her feelings confused her, caused discord in her heart and mind.

He laughed. Full, belly shaking cackles tumbling from his lips and bringing her thoughts back to their current argument. It was an angry laugh, marring the features she had been increasingly considering handsome in her deepest thoughts. Then he lifted the sleeve of his robes. Hermione flinched away from the black Mark on his forearm.

She almost didn't recognize him like this, steel grey eyes hard, the edge of one lip pulled up, twisting his perfect Cupid's bow, flawless, pale skin flushing up his neck.

"You think I'm not trapped? Where do you think I can go to escape from this? How far can I get before _he_ calls me back? It burns and writhes on my skin until I heed his bidding, shackled to a mad wizard who would kill me as easily as he demanded my fealty. I didn't choose this. It was thrust upon me in order to save the lives of my parents. What illegal things have _you_ done to ensure your parents' safety? Don't think we don't know you've done something with them. You should just be glad they're considered inconsequential enough to not warrant more investigation. So, really, tell me, Granger, how free I am." He sneered an ugly look onto his face before he turned on his heel and strode back to the window. "Let down your hair, Granger."

Frozen in shock, she didn't move, but Draco didn't let that stop him. He snatched a bundle of her cable-like plaits and tossed them over the side. Barely giving her a moment to brace herself against his weight, he climbed over and out and down.

When Bellatrix came later in the morning, Hermione pulled her up automatically, her mind having gone from shock to denial - waiting at her window, staring out in agonizing anticipation for Draco to come back because Godric help her, _she_ couldn't go after _him_, and that _couldn't_ be the last time she saw him - to anger at his leaving her there alone without discussing things further to a deep, devastating depression, leaving her hollow in a way she hadn't felt since she first woke up in her accursed tower.

Bellatrix was in a frightful mood, her hair and eyes wild while she flourished her wand hostilely. But Hermione heard Draco's impassioned "tell me, Granger, how free I am" and his flat "let down your hair, Granger" echoed over the nonsense his aunt screeched at her.

It had been ages since Bellatrix had interrogated her about Gringotts and the sword, and now she was also asking about a cup. All Hermione could think of was a delicate cut glass goblet with anti-spill and replenishing charms tucked safely under the bed.

The tears that leaked out of the corners of her eyes were as much from the boring agony emanating from the hole where her heart usually resided as from the feeling of imaginary bamboo splinters digging into her nail beds and her joints being pulled from their sockets individually.

Not for the first time, Hermione wished she could separate her mind from her body and her emotions. She longed to disconnect from the pain, to not _feel_ anymore. Maybe she wouldn't have to experience the heartache if she could disengage from reality.

Instead her ever active mind was stuck on Draco's sharp words and the way they stabbed themselves into her heart and gut. Her mind replayed their conversation on a loop, how it had all started, the moment it had switched from their playful banter to antagonistic accusations. If she'd been aware enough, she would have been relieved she hadn't mumbled her thoughts out loud to Bellatrix as she was sometimes wont to do in the midst of her worst pain.

And then, after all of that, for the first time in three months, Hermione spent the night alone.

* * *

The next morning was much the same as the previous, only Bellatrix also spent a good deal of time reminding Hermione that she was stuck in a one-room tower with dozens of special wards that had been set for decades. Not even a dragon could rescue her, she promised.

That day's torture was in a similar motif to some of Bellatrix's favourite methods. Hermione's whole body - legs, arms, torso, mouth - were bound with a modified _Incarcerous_ that left the binds as cold as ice (some days the magical ropes were like flames on her body instead). Once she was properly restrained and goosebumps littered her exposed skin, Bellatrix alternated prodding her with her wand, the tip so hot it left small, round welts on her body, and slicing her flesh in a practiced way so that the fine cuts stung long after the witch had moved on to another section.

Wrapped as she was in the freezing restraints, Hermione was left face up on the hard, cold ground, unable to squirm away or cry out in pain. Hermione always knew that when she was gagged, Bellatrix wasn't there on her Dark Lord's behalf as he usually preferred answers to useless torture. She was only to be used as sport today. Tears leaked out of the corners of her eyes and trailed past her ears into her hair.

Her body was starting to go numb, the sections tied against the icy cord tingling and throbbing and twitching. The exposed parts were inversely hypersensitive. Coupled with the random barrage of inflictions, Hermione wished she could just scream out against the sensations.

She wanted Draco to come back and stop it all. She wanted Draco to hold her and whisper sweet nothings in her ear. She wanted Draco to tell her everything was going to be alright, even though he had _never_ promised her something he couldn't deliver. (He'd scoffed at that once, stating that false hope was a Gryffindor fault, borne of arrogant pride.)

But most of all, she just wanted Draco.

And the worst agony of it all was knowing he wasn't coming back for her.

* * *

After she was sufficiently alone for the night, Hermione settled despondently at the window.

She traced the constellations with her eyes. Perseus was just peaking over the horizon, and the chill breeze indicated that autumn had come. She wondered if she had missed her eighteenth birthday while she was shut in her tower.

Still staring up into the sky, following the rotation of the stars like she had from the Astronomy tower in class, she began going over the heroic life of the Greek demigod who always graced her star charts at the beginning of term.

Hermione had just reached the point in his story when he had seen the princess Andromeda chained to a rock, ready to be eaten by the water serpent, when an achingly familiar voice shouted urgently.

"Hermione! Let down your hair!"

For a heart stopping moment, she fought to pull forth her feelings of anger and betrayal to overshadow the overwhelming relief that crashed over her. Her resolve held for the span of one breath before she was flinging her long plait down to Draco, sobs wracking her frame almost as badly as her usual tremors.

Before she had decided what she was going to say to him, Draco's fine blond head and intense silver eyes were cresting the opening, and he was before her, cradling her face in his large, strong hands, his nimble fingers brushing her tears gently away.

He turned them then, seating Hermione delicately on the bench and kneeling so they were eye level.

"I am so sorry, Hermione," he declared. "You have no idea how sorry I am that I left you. I should have come back for you, and I don't rightly know why I didn't, except that I am a coward and was ashamed, and I understand, fully, if you can never forgive me."

She shook her head in his hands, gasping and holding the breaths deliberately in an attempt to regain control of her wild emotions.

"I'm sorry for pushing you away," she insisted, "I didn't mean to-"

"No, no, no, love. It's not your fault. Please, don't blame yourself. It only makes me loathe myself more."

Hermione sniffed and released a breathless giggle. She still couldn't quite believe he was really there, back, with her.

"I'm glad you came back to me. I won't ask you to take me with you again." A piece of her heart fractured at the admission, knowing she was deliberately giving up her fight for freedom. But as she knew from the beginning, she was willing to trade in her white knight or her charming prince and daring rescue for a kindly dragon to keep her company.

Draco flinched and groaned, though, a reaction that surprised and confused Hermione.

"Don't say that, Granger. Don't say that." He heaved a great sigh. Moving his hands down to hers, he clasped them together in her lap, his eyes following them.

"I-" he began, huffing another breath. "I was convinced I had been the warlock with the hairy heart for so long, and I was afraid I would hurt you if I admitted that I was changing. But you've been right all along. He wasn't real, and I'm not him. And I still don't know where we would go or how to free you, but I'm willing to try. My parents' reactions and the Dark Lord be damned. Because I love you."

Draco's monologue came to an end and left Hermione speechless.

"Draco," she breathed, gripping his hands tightly with hers.

"Please forgive my unbelievable stupidity," he begged, his eyes flashing back up to meet hers. "Forgive my selfishness and cowardice and my envy. My woes are nothing compared to my aunt's wrath, and I am indescribably sorry." He traced one of her brand new welts, a trail from the corner of her mouth across the plains of her cheek, lightly.

"Oh, Draco, of course I forgive you," Hermione's words were spoken emphatically, and the fingers caressing her face moved to the back of her head, tangling into her curls, bringing her face to his.

Their kiss was electric.

His lips pressed against hers hungrily, slanting desperately as she tipped her head back to give him better access. Her eyes closed, and the hand that wasn't clutching his lifted to his chest.

She could feel his heartbeat like a bird fluttering against its cage and knew hers was the same.

When Draco came up for air, he whispered against her lips that he loved her, capturing her upper lip between his as she sighed into him.

In between his insistent kisses, she managed to repeat the phrase back to him, one word at a time.

He groaned into her, tracing the seam of her mouth with his tongue and trailing his left hand from her lap, up her side, to her breast. Hermione quivered against the feeling, arching her back into his hand. Her fist closed in his robes by his collar, and her other hand reached for his side to pull him closer to her.

When Draco began kneading her breast, she opened her legs so he could settle between her thighs. A delicious heat trickled down her spine and coiled in her abdomen when he brushed against her.

"Hermione." He groaned into her open mouth, his thumb circling her nipple through her clothes. "Tell me to stop."

His order lacked all conviction, so she ignored him while she pressed her body into his. She trailed kisses along the sharp edge of his jaw until she reached his earlobe. Gently taking it between her teeth, she tugged on it, feeling his body shudder between her legs and the hand at the nape of her neck tighten its grip so she couldn't escape if she'd wanted to.

Her blood was singing through her veins, flushing her skin dark, and heating her womb sensually. Exhaling her hot breath into his ear, she moaned his name, seemingly snapping his control.

His hips rocked into hers, and he bent his head to attach his lips to the corner of her jaw and suck his way down her neck.

Hermione shut her eyes and angled her head to give him more room, for once choosing to focus and feel the innervations assailing her flesh. She felt him pause on various spots along her throat, sucking on the hot burns from Bellatrix's wand and tracing the stinging cuts with the firm tip of his tongue. She experienced it all, and she revelled in the sensations.

When he reached the hollow of her throat, he unfastened her threadbare robes, continuing his journey down her chest. He gave the same treatment to each of her cuts, scabs, and scars as he came across them. Trailing his fingers reverently along her exposed skin, he traced each of her ribs, emaciated and pulled tight against her skin.

Not knowing what to do with her hands, she brought them up to his hair, gripping it when his tongue would swirl around a sensitive spot, never knowing if she should push him away or pull him closer. This was as intimate as she'd ever been with another person, and that had been with Viktor three years prior. She was out of her depth but didn't want to stop.

When Ron had left and come back, she'd raged and raged, taking days if not weeks to forgive him, and even then only begrudgingly for Harry's sake. But with Draco, she never wanted to let him go. She wanted to mould herself to him so that even when he left her, she could still keep a part of him with her.

He continued to play her body like a harp, his exploring fingers travelling up her spine to unlatch her practical bra as he kissed his way back up her torso. She released her arms from the straps and wound her legs around his body, trapping him to her. He took one erect nipple into his mouth, and she convulsed into him.

Her hips snapped to his, her body arched forward, and her head tipped back to release a groan of pleasure.

"Draco, Draco," she breathed his name into the room.

His length was hard against her core, and she bucked again to feel the friction. His hands were at her waist immediately, his large palms smoothing down to cup her ass as she rocked against him.

Heat expanded with a need she was desperate to release, and, as if sensing that, Draco lifted Hermione into his arms and carried her the four paces to the bed.

He dropped her on top of the sheets, peeling her robes and knickers off her hips in one sweep. He wasted no time crawling between her legs and over her.

He rested on his left elbow with his fingers weaving into her long, long tresses. And then he kissed her lips needfully. With his weight balanced to his left, he dragged his right hand down her body until he reached the apex of her core. Skillfully, he pressed his finger into the bundle of nerves, shooting stars through Hermione's senses until she felt like they were sparking out her toes, fingers, and skull and she saw them behind her closed eyelids.

Crying out, she bucked into his hand to repeat the exquisite feeling. Warmth leaked wetly out of her cunt, and Draco dipped his long index finger into her untouched channel, leaving his thumb on her clit to circle the nub tightly.

"Draco," she gasped, wrenching her lips from his so she could speak. "I-I… I haven't… before."

She wanted to warn him but hadn't expected her admission to cause him to stop. He paused his ministrations but left his finger in her with an aching stillness. When her eyes met his, she found them to be dark slate with his pupils expanded with desire, but there was something else to them, too. A regret shining through the lust.

When he began to pull back, Hermione lunged. She wrapped her legs around his hips, locking her ankles together at the base of his spine, and gripping his robes at the shoulders as tightly as her weak fingers could manage.

"No!" She exclaimed too loudly right next to his ear. With more restraint she continued, "Please don't leave me. I want to. _Please_."

Studying her dark umber eyes for several heartbeats, he settled back over her, obviously placated by what he found. He swirled her clit twice and suctioned his lips around her nipple before trying to get off her again. Ankles still locked, Hermione wouldn't budge.

"You have to let me up, love. I can't take off my robes from here."

Draco chuckled a bit under his breath when she hesitated. Finally, she unhinged her feet and allowed him to stand at the side of the bed. Not wasting a moment, he stripped and piled his robes and pants on the floor.

Naked, he crawled back up her body. Checking to make sure she was still ready for him, he slid his finger back into her entrance. With a flick, he found that spongy spot on her front wall and applied gentle pressure.

Hissing a breath, Hermione jerked her hips up at the bolt of electricity that shocked through her groin and into her stomach.

After a few more taps, Draco pulled his finger back and shoved it back in so hard the base of his thumb hit her clit. He repeated the motion several more times with a steady pace. The even stimulation primed Hermione until she was rocking with his movements. She hardly noticed when he added a second finger, but the third stretched her oddly from the inside. She squirmed a little beneath him, unused to the sensation.

"Relax," he cooed. "It will feel like this but more. Deeper, wider. It's easier on you if you relax."

When she finally melted back against the mattress, he kissed her lovingly. He never stopped his fingers, keeping track of her breathless moans and wanton movements to make sure she didn't come too early. He didn't know how sensitive she would be coming down from an orgasm and was just selfish enough to want to get his dick in before she made him stop.

"It's been a while for me, so I may not last, but I won't leave you without coming," he promised her, preparing himself to enter her. She nodded, whimpering when he fully removed his fingers, feeling strangely empty.

Rubbing her juices from his fingers onto the head of his cock, Draco gave himself a good tug to test his slipperiness. Usually he would use a lubrication charm, but due to the circumstances, spat into his palm to ready himself.

Holding himself at the base, he lined up with her hole. Nudging the tip in, he inhaled at the wet heat beckoning him in.

"I'll go slow." It was strained, and she wasn't sure he was sure he could keep that promise. It didn't matter.

"No. Do it fast. Like a plaster."

"A plaster?" The faint glimmer of a smirk, but he didn't wait for her to clarify. Surging forward, he seated himself to the hilt.

They moaned in tandem as Hermione was filled for the first time. Draco's was pure ecstasy while Hermione's was on the discomfort side of the galleon. It was sharp and quick yet downright ticklish compared to most of the pain she was dealt in this tower, though. So when Draco gathered enough of his senses to check in on her, she assured him she was fine and asked if he would _please, move!_

Not needing to be told twice, he pulled back before thrusting forward. He rolled his hips, hoping his pelvis would stimulate her clit and increase the pleasure for her.

Before long the stretch and release timed perfectly with the light slapping on her little bundle of nerves worked the warmth in her stomach into an inferno. Lifting her legs to fold her knees closer to her chest changed his angle, driving Draco deeper. A tight coiling wound its way down her spine, clenching her fingers and toes and eyes. Just a few more thrusts, and she was sure she'd find the relief that was achingly, teasingly, just out of reach. Just a couple more.

And suddenly the heavenly fullness was gone, removed, stolen.

Eyes popping wide with a pathetic whine of complaint, Hermione found Draco pumping himself furiously in his fist. A tight look of concentration was screwed on his face, brows pulled tight, mouth open slack. Then, in half a moment, dense ropes of cum splattered onto her concave abdomen, the bowl of her bellybutton containing the evidence of his passion.

When he was spent, he slumped to the side, catching himself on the mattress with his non-wand hand and lazily opening his eyes to dreamy slits.

Hermione opened her mouth to huff in indignation when he released his flaccid cock and promptly attached his finger to her clit.

He rubbed her frantically. When she thrust against him, he held her down - and himself up - with a hand to her hip. Slowly the furnace in her womb sparked back to life, the coil of her muscles tightened again. Draco leaned down and teased her right nipple into his mouth, giving it a light nibble.

It was like a spring released from Hermione's core through her whole body. Her toes curled and her feet sickled; her calves and quads tensed. She threw her head back with a soundless wail. And then everything released with the most pleasant tingle down her scalp, through her spine, and into her limbs.

Draco slowed his circuits to a crawl, releasing her breast from his mouth. A slight shiver commenced from her boneless body. Tremors were not uncommon for the witch, but Draco ceased his listless playing, just in case.

"Don't go, Draco," Hermione pleaded, sleepily. "Not yet."

Not really in any state to be going anywhere himself, Draco conceded. The blood was still rushing through his body and hadn't quite made it back to his brain. He was high on Hermione and just wanted to lie with her, skin on skin.

Using the corner of the blanket tucked beneath them, Draco meticulously cleaned his spunk off his witch. Once he was satisfied, he collapsed next to her, burying his face into the crook of her neck where her hair tumbled off the bed and decorated the floor and flinging his arm over her waist to hold her to him.

There, they drifted off into a blissful slumber.


	3. The Rescue

Hermione woke to the muted light of the early morning and the screech of "Mudblood, let down your hair!"

Her body sore and eyes bleary, she tried to work through the confusion blanketing her mind. It was like taking a thirty minute afternoon nap just to find the whole day gone, dinner long past, and eight hours lost. Like opening her eyes to shadows and moonlight instead of bright sunlight shining through her curtains.

Hermione wasn't sure why she continued to think as such. She never slept through the night anymore. She _always_ rested in the middle of the day, the time when she wasn't on edge waiting for her torture to come.

At the second furious call for her hair, Hermione shifted her heavy limbs on the bed. The covers brushed over her bare skin, and the firm weight on her waist adjusted to the movement.

Suddenly her night rushed back at her, her foggy brain clearing in a terrifying instant. She bolted upright, jostling Draco so that he, too, woke.

Wiping the crusty sleep from the corner of his eyes, a sleepy grin slowly inched up his face.

"Hermione-"

"Oh no! Oh, Godric, no, no, no," Hermione interrupted, flinging herself off the bed, rushing to pull her robes back on and all the buttons through the correct holes and missing the look of anguish that crossed Draco's countenance.

"MUDBLOOD!"

Hermione cringed, and the misery morphed to one of horror.

"What are we going to do?" Hermione whispered as Draco swore.

The escalating fear that coursed through Hermione's veins suddenly dissolved. In a pleasant daze, she paced to the window. It was imperative that she let her hair down, but the sense of urgency was a calming balm. Vaguely she thought she heard her name called, and once, she had to shake off a restraining grip on her arm. But finally she approached the window.

She tossed her heavy ropes of hair down to the waiting witch below.

"Well, well, well. What have we here?" Bellatrix purred as the Imperious haze evaporated out of Hermione's mind.

She flinched away from the older witch as soon as she was back in control of her faculties. She was prepared for a barrage of _Crucios_, but they never came. Peering through squinted eyes, she realized Bellatrix was focused on Draco, who had thankfully at least thrown on his robes, even if they were wrinkled and dusty.

"I should have known Lucius's boy would turn out to be a failure." She sneered. "You have too much of that weak Malfoy blood in you. It offsets the nobel Black blood you should have inherited. But to turn into a blood traitor! How dare you!"

With a jab of her wand, a nonverbal _Incarcerous_ shot thick binds towards Draco. He ducked and dodged to evade the cords, but they caught him, winding their way up his body from feet to neck. He toppled over when his feet snapped together as the ties cinched him down. Rolling to his back, his arms were pinned beneath him. To his credit, a defiant look settled over him.

"No!" Hermione jerked towards him, arm reached out as if to help him.

But with a fiery tug on her scalp, she was retained in place.

"You, filthy Mudblood, should know your place!" Bellatrix used her grip on Hermione's hair to steer her to her knees.

Resisting as much as she could, Hermione was just not strong enough to overpower the other witch. Water leaked instinctively from her eyes as she struggled and as her hair pulled against her roots. But after a short fight, Bellatrix used her weight to knock Hermione bodily to the floor.

Sitting on her stomach, Bellatrix grasped Hermione's left arm, wrenching it away from her body. Using a sharp blade, she carved the horrendous epithet into the raw flesh of Hermione's forearm.

Bucking her hips to dislodge her tormentor, Hermione writhed against the sharp tugging that blinded her with agony. A high keening noise escaped the back of her throat as she held back her screams.

Due to Bellatrix's weight on her diaphragm, Hermione was unable to draw breath. The oxygen starvation burned in her lungs and throat, sprinkling dark spots across her vision. She couldn't tell which pain was worse. It was all Hellish.

The weight shifted, and a rattling inhale shot too quickly into her lungs. Choking coughs wracked her body as she tried to balance her breathing to a natural rhythm.

While she was preoccupied with recovering from her suffocation, Bellatrix shoved Hermione over to her stomach. Gripping fistfuls of Hermione's locks, she yanked the girl's head back.

"Proud of this hair, are you, filth? I can fix that," Bellatrix threatened while she fingered a delicate plait .

With her windpipe wrenched too far back, Hermione wheezed for air. This was almost as bad as the waterboarding. She was too panicked to focus on what the Pureblood was doing at her back. Blood rushed in her ears, a deafening thumping that pounded with the cadence of her heartbeat.

It wasn't until her face pitched forward, smacking her face against the stone floor and breaking her nose in the process, that she realized all of her hair was gone. It had just vanished, not a strand to be found in the tower.

"I can give you hair and take it away!" Bellatrix said in a singsong voice while twirling her knife around her fingers. "No more unwarranted visitors. But that won't matter after tonight anyway!"

She swapped her blade for her wand and placed the tip at the base of Hermione's skull. The back of her neck was ticklish from the cool air touching it, unhindered for the first time in a long while. Her head felt light and floaty despite her face being swollen and dribbling blood.

With an emphatic _Crucio_, Hermione felt the spark of magic transfer from the wand to her first vertebrae the split second before her skin was torn from her muscles. Rusty, wide nails dug deep through her tissue into the marrow of her bones. Her flesh stung with third degree burns or frostbite or a million scorpions, maybe all three at once.

She simply endured for an incalculable length of time before she was released.

The weight at her back was also suddenly absent, though instead of silence, her ears were bombarded with the imprecise sounds of a struggle: grunting, flesh striking flesh, fabric tearing.

When the noise subsided, she was gathered against a shoulder, Draco's shoulder. "C'mon." He groaned. "We have to get out of here. Now."

Nose still dripping blood and muscles still cramping, Hermione gathered what little strength she still possessed and heaved herself upright into Draco's arms. Her head was too light. It seemed to float all the way to the ceiling before she registered that they were actually falling.

Draco had fled the tower by jumping out the window with Hermione in his arms.

"_Arresto momentum!_" He shouted through Hermione's scream of terror. Too late, they slowed down.

They landed hard, rattling their bones and whooshing the air out of their lungs.

Before they had time to react, a double edged knife stuck point down into the ground directly between their faces. Hermione recognized it instantly and shied away.

They both peered up to find an irate Bellatrix hurling insults and threats down to them. It wouldn't be long before she tossed hexes after them too, Hermione thought.

Moaning as he sat up, Draco revealed a smashed wand in his right hand. It was unmistakably his aunt's.

"So much for stealing you a wand to use," he groused.

"I wouldn't have touched it anyway," Hermione whispered.

Pocketing the useless stick, Draco hefted Hermione to her feet and tugged her to the right, into the cover of the trees.

* * *

"_Episkey_." Hermione's broken wrist reset itself before her eyes, the last of her superficial traumas. "I wish your other injuries were as easy to heal." Draco ran a gentle hand down the side of her face to her shoulder. "Was it always that bad?"

They had always made a point not to talk about her torture. It was impossible to process in the short time between sessions, and Hermione preferred to block the memories during her brief stints of ataraxia. It had become an unspoken rule to leave it alone.

A bark of laughter without humor. "That was just her warm-up."

Draco flinched but let the topic drop.

"Come on, we need to move. Head south or maybe to France. I don't know if distance affects the Mark, but we need to get away." He took her hand in his and started marching through the thicket.

"Wait, wait!" Hermione contended. "I have something I need to tell you." She dug her heels into the earth and wrenched her hand back when he didn't pause.

"What is it? We don't know how much time we have; we need to put distance between us and the tower." He whirled around, silver eyes flashing with alarm.

"This is important!" Hermione insisted. Draco cast his gaze around their surroundings with paranoia. She lowered her volume and spoke earnestly. "Is there somewhere safe you can Apparate us?"

He shook his head before she'd finished her question, eyes shut tight and shoulders tense. "I don't know if it's safe to Apparate you in your condition. I might splinch you."

"We don't have much of a choice. We can't _walk_ across Europe! If you don't know where to take us, give me your wand, and I'll do it."

He looked like he might argue for a moment, lashing out against her bossiness, but he relented, passing her his wand.

It wasn't the same one she remembered from Hogwarts, but she didn't comment on that. Her whole arm was trembling, and she was glad Apparition didn't require precise wandwork. She clasped Draco's hand in hers, vividly imagined their destination, and turned on the spot.

After the moment of feeling squeezed down a tube, their feet landed on solid ground again. Hermione's magic felt strong, but she was physically weak, and Draco had to catch her when she swayed. He transfigured a leaf into a cup and filled it with an _Aguamenti_. Sitting them down and allowing Hermione's back to rest against his chest, he tipped the water to her lips.

When her thirst was quenched, Hermione said, "I know we've fought over Harry a lot, but there's a reason I need to get back to him. I wanted to tell you before but didn't know if I could trust you with the truth since you weren't willing to betray You-Know-Who."

Draco's eyes glazed over, hard as stone, but he didn't interrupt her. Taking that as a sign to continue, she rushed on. "You-Know-Who created six Horcruxes. He can't be defeated until they are all destroyed. Harry is on a mission to find and destroy them all. By the time we were captured by the Snatchers, we'd finished off three of them, but there's still three left, besides You-Know-Who himself."

Draco gaped at her. "That's not fucking possible."

"Weren't you the one who said, 'there's little a Dark wizard is unwilling to dabble with to reach his ends?'"

"Merlin's balls. If that's true, we're definitely leaving the country. We can go to America, and Saint Potter can deal with all that."

He still sounded in shock, but Hermione glared at him.

"We'll do no such thing! Harry needs my help. I can't abandon him!"

Anger rising, Draco snapped, "Look at you! You can barely hold a wand, and you can't even stand after Apparating! You're in no state to go gallivanting after Potter looking for the Dark Lord's Horcruxes! That's _Dark_ magic!"

"I bloody well know it's Dark magic, Draco. What do you think I was doing for the eight months prior to my extended stay as Bellatrix's prisoner? Hosting tea parties?"

He flinched and wouldn't meet her eyes. "You don't even know where he is. Besides, he seems to be doing fine on his own."

Hermione's eyes narrowed. "What aren't you telling me?"

They were both stubbornly silent for the span of several heartbeats. Draco avoided eye contact completely, rubbing his left forearm distractedly, until he broke.

"The night… The night I left, there was a break in at Gringotts. Potter and another, presumably Weaselbe, managed to steal something from the Lestrange's family vault. They escaped on the back of a dragon. I don't know what they took, but the Dark Lord was furious." He broke off with a shiver, most likely reliving being in the presence of Voldemort's fury. He gulped and shook out his left hand.

Hermione drank in Draco's story, considering the implications. It made sense. Bellatrix had been irrationally horrified when she thought they'd been in her vault and had stolen the Sword of Gryffindor. It wasn't too far of a stretch to think she might be holding one of her master's Horcruxes, too (considering Lucius had had the diary for years).

It explained the longer than usual torture with the slew of odd questions Hermione had barely registered, let alone answered, the morning after Draco had adandoned her. How Bellatrix expected her to know anything about what was going on in the world outside her tower, she had no idea.

But if Harry and Ron had found and dispatched another Horcrux, that meant there were only two left!

_Think, Hermione, think. If they destroyed a Horcrux, where would they go next? It's too early to go after the snake- unless they got to the fifth one without anyone knowing. But what would it be… Bellatrix was asking about a cup. Hufflepuff's cup! So something of Ravenclaw's._

She must have been muttering her stream of consciousness out loud because Draco cut in.

"They're at Hogwarts." He sighed a heavy breath out his nose. "_Fuck_. They're at Hogwarts. There's to be a battle. The Dark Lord is calling it 'the Final Battle,' and it hasn't even happened yet." The expression on his face was like his fingernails were being removed from their beds. "Potter's at Hogwarts, but the Dark Lord is going to be there, too. You don't have a wand, we can barely Apparate, you're weak and injured and inundated with Cruciatus Curse aftershocks, and we have no way of getting into Hogwarts' school grounds. We _can't_ go there."

But conviction fortified Hermione's heart. Gryffindor bravery and daring flooded her veins. And she was not giving up.

* * *

They had Apparated directly into the Shrieking Shack.

When Hermione informed him of the various secret passageways from Hogsmeade into the castle, Draco thought he would be able to deter her with his own intel. The Caterwauling Charm placed over the village was sure to discourage her.

He'd been disappointed.

When they stumbled over the uneven floor, Hermione almost pitched face first into Professor Snape's unmoving body.

Draco caught her again, but promptly released her as he dropped to his knees.

While he grieved, Hermione swallowed her bile and examined the late Death Eater. The pool of blood at his neck drew her attention.

"Nagini must still be alive. I wonder what he did to incur _his_ wrath."

Draco didn't respond, blank eyes staring unseeing at the pale remains of his family's close friend.

After giving him a moment, Hermione came to Draco's side.

"We have to get going. We can't stay here." She gently nudged him.

With a great inhale, Draco stood, lifting something from Snape's hand as he did so. He offered Hermione their professor's wand, but she recoiled.

"I can't use his wand!" she hissed.

Clearly holding back his emotions, Draco swallowed. "Then here," he rummaged in his pocket, withdrawing his same wand from earlier, "use mine. Who knew you'd be so picky about a wand."

It was a valiant attempt at humor, despite his tone being too wan to be effective. Hermione offered a small, sympathetic smile. After taking his wand, she clasped his hand in hers, giving it a small squeeze and leading him down the dirt tunnel.

They left their wand lights off, but Hermione filled the silence by asking how he'd escaped Bellatrix's _Incarcerous_.

"I grabbed your comb before the binds secured my hands. I managed to break it in half so it would have a sharp edge and cut through the ropes until I could disentangle myself. You know the rest from there." After a beat of only their breaths and footsteps filling the tunnel, he continued, his words flowing unhindered like the rapids of a river. "It felt like it took me forever while I watched my aunt cut off all your hair. It all just vanished as she cut it. She kept threatening to slip and cut your whole head off. And then she started on the Cruciatus." She felt more than saw him shake his head. "It was so much worse than my drawing room."

Slightly desensitized to it, Hermione moved on before he could dwell. "I… Thank you. It was quick thinking, and it saved both our lives. And now we're both free."

The damp earth finally sloped up, and Hermione warned Draco that they were close.

"We'll have to make a run for it after we exit the tunnel. If the fighting hasn't started yet, we should head for the Room of Requirement; that's probably where Harry and Ron will be. If they aren't, we'll search Ravenclaw tower for something Tom Riddle would have turned into a Horcrux."

She was in full planning mode, coming up with contingencies as soon as her brain imagined unfavourable scenarios. Things like where they could hide if they were discovered, how to explain Draco's presence to Harry and Ron, and numerous offensive and defensive spells.

"Are you aware that you're reciting every spell you know in alphabetical order?" Draco actually snickered. Hermione pursed her lips in embarrassment, halting not only a retort but also her lists.

When they reached the exit, Hermione poked her head out and whispered, "_Hominem revelio_."

She was pleased when the relaxation of Draco's shoulders against her side indicated he understood nothing happening was good news. She'd never get over Ron's misplaced attempts at consolation in Grimmauld Place after their run in with Death Eaters at Tottenham Court Road.

The sun was a quarter of the way through the sky, and, despite the chill in the air, it was a lovely day. There was something eerie that raised the fine hairs on her arms and the back of her neck, though.

Surely term must have already started. She'd expected to see students milling about, playing in the fallen leaves or scrambling to class. Hagrid's hut lacked the trail of smoke from the chimney. At closer examination, the garden was overgrown with weeds, and the wooden structure was charred black.

"What is the date?" She turned to Draco curiously.

"October thirty-first." He said it matter-of-fact and clearly didn't understand the meaning that jolted through Hermione. Misinterpreting her reaction, he continued, "I know, I'm sorry. She had you for two hundred-and-sixteen days."

Remorse rolled off him in palpable waves, and Hermione was struck at how he had kept track of the length of her capture when even she had given up on counting the days.

"No, no," she assured him, though a feather could have knocked her over. "That's not it. Harry's parents were killed seventeen years ago today."

Draco pondered the ramifications of that knowledge while Hermione rechecked their surroundings. Even the Whomping Willow was calm, though she knew that would change if she didn't prod the knot to her side.

"We'll have to run for it. Come on. On the count of three."

They were off; Hermione pushed herself through the grinding of her joints and the shocks up her feet. She really needed shoes.

* * *

They made it to the tapestry marking the location of the Room of Requirement with little fanfare. There was no one in the corridors or open classrooms. They didn't pass any ghosts or Peeves or Mrs Norris.

They paced, together, the necessary three times before the door revealed itself to them. Draco reached the door first, but he held it open for Hermione to enter.

She stepped into the Room of Hidden Things. Piles and piles of discarded items stretched on. A heap of chairs reached higgledy-piggledy for the high ceiling. Books and tomes scattered every which way, some neatly placed in order, others sprawled pages down and open. A whole conglomeration of fanged frisbees waited, chomping on their neighbors, for their owners to come back for them. Broken ingredients phials and melted cauldrons and snapped quills and crumpled parchment and ripped backpacks and any number of unwanted school items littered the entrance.

Hermione headed for what looked like a stash of lost school uniforms poking around the corner of an especially large mountain of trunks and crates. When Draco called for her, she turned to find him just to the left of the door, indicating to a coat rack. A beautiful, scarlet cloak hung from one of the arms. Sturdy trainers sat neatly at the base with a pair of clean socks folded between them. A stack of hats in various styles defied gravity on top of the coat rack.

"I'll stick out like an expired potion in that," she murmured, but came over to him anyway. Fingering the fabric of the cloak, she found it to be silky and cool, like water or Harry's invisibility cloak. Before she quite knew what she was doing, she swept it up and secured it around her neck.

"It suits you," Draco said as she laced up the trainers. She ignored the hats.

"Come on. Let's see if we can find Harry."

* * *

They heard them before they saw them, due to the clusters of junk that formed meandering pathways in the spacious room.

"What's a die-dum?" It was a deep, gravelly, dim voice.

Hermione turned to Draco questionly.

"Goyle," he whispered to her.

"Harry? Are you talking to someone?" came Ron's voice, calling from somewhere out of sight around the twisting turns.

A third voice - Crabbe's, Hermione deduced - shouted, "_Descendo!_"

One of the taller walls rising above them several piles away began to shift to the side. Loose objects toppled out of the slots they'd been haphazardly shoved, raining down with various tones of _plop_-_smack_-_crash_. Over the commotion, Hermione heard Harry roar, "Ron! _Finite!_"

Hermione tore down the path, Draco at her heels. Adrenaline pumped through her blood. Harry was in trouble, and she needed to help him. Coming up on a corner, Hermione slid to a stop, peering around the turn with one eye.

Harry's back was to her, untidy hair unmistakable from her angle. He was standing next to a dilapidated cupboard with a stone bust of a wizard wearing a wig and a tarnished tiara. The hulking figures of Crabbe and Goyle loomed before him.

Goyle had asked what a 'die-dum' was, Hermione recalled, catching sight of the delicate headwear. He must have meant a diadem. Did Harry think that diadem was a Horcrux?

"_Accio_ diadem," she said under her breath to avoid detection. She wasn't surprised when it didn't work.

"Are you willing to cover me?" Hermione whispered to Draco.

Without the hesitation she expected, he nodded firmly, adjusting his wand to a more aggressive grip.

As one, they both jumped out from behind their hiding spot. Hermione lunged for the tiara on top of the statue while Draco cast a nonverbal jet of red over Harry's shoulder. It hit Goyle squarely in the chest before he had the chance to dodge.

Focused as she was on her target, Hermione missed what happened in the commotion behind her. Her reach was _just_ too short, her fingers catching on the yellow hair below the coveted crown.

As gravity pulled her momentum down, Hermione latched on and brought the diadem with her, stone bust and all.

"Oomph!" She toppled back into a warm body, fingers wrapped around the precious headpiece greedily. Rolling to the side, she came face to face with green eyes blown wide into a confused countenance she was all too familiar with.

"Harry!" She flung her arms around his neck, nearly bursting into tears at finally being reunited with her best friend.

"Hermione?" He was gobsmacked. "What-? How-? Watch out!" He shoved her behind him, flinging up a _Protego_ shield as an errant jinx ricocheted towards them. He countered with a bellowing, "_Stupefy!_"

"Is this it? Is this one of the Horcruxes?" She asked breathlessly from behind his shoulder. He was much shorter than the other men, and her eyes were level with his ear.

Before he could respond, heat like a great inferno blazed around them.

"Hermione!" Draco shouted, a blinding panic catching in her ears. Instinctively, she turned to find him, his fear bubbling in her gut like a contagion.

He barreled into both her and Harry, gripping their arms and hauling them along with him. "Run!"

"Geroff me, Malfoy!" Harry spun out of his grasp, his wand levelling with his nemesis of seven years.

"Harry, no!" Jumping in front of Draco, Hermione shielded him with her slight frame. The crackle of static electricity wiggled across her skin as she comprehended that Harry had shot a spell at her. The red cloak shimmered for a moment before settling again. She and Harry stared at each other in shock at both their actions and the fact that she was still standing after a direct hit.

"We don't have time for this," Draco worried, breaking the revery. His hand sought her free one and tugged her along the paths in a determined manner, not checking to see if Harry or Ron followed behind them. Hermione staggered along, tripping to keep up with his long strides.

A horrific shriek emerged from the grumbling roar that steadily grew louder in the spacious room. Hermione hesitated, looking back over her shoulder for the source of the yelp of agony. A putrid smell wafted on the waves of heat, noxious smoke and burning wood and something else she couldn't place her finger on. A sharp yank brought her attention back to Draco before she could swing her head all the way around.

"Don't look back. We have to keep going. I'm not sure if we're going to make it."

"How do you know where to go?" she asked, panting with fear and fatigue.

They passed a tall, looming cabinet.

"I practically lived here all sixth year," he admitted, tightening his hold on her hand.

"Hermione! Malfoy!" The call came from nearby but above, so they searched the tops of the surrounding mounds. Seeking through the dense smog accumulating beneath the ceiling, Draco found them first. He pointed to a spot high above them.

Harry and Ron were perched on a pair of broomsticks, combing through the wreckage.

"Harry! Ron!" Hermione shouted, coughing on the scalding air. The howl of fire was becoming deafening, filled with the stomping of trampling hooves and the crashing of furniture and trash. Pellets of sweat rolled down her face, neck, back. Draco shoved her to the nearest stack, encouraging her to climb.

Harry and Ron spotted them and raced over. Hermione's clammy hand slipped through Harry's once before he hauled her on the back of his broom. Ron gracelessly allowed Draco on his.

"Hurry before the Fiendfyre reaches the entrance!" Draco ordered.

_Fiendfyre! _Hermione thought. She looked at the diadem in her hand, trying to ignore the uncomfortable swooping of her stomach. She really hated flying.

The perspiration from her palms had rubbed a spot clean. _Wit beyond measure is man's greatest treasure_ was etched in fine script beneath the filigree wings of the eagle-shaped crown. A sapphire of deepest blue stared deep into Hermione's broken soul. The tiara seemed so fragile, so precious.

The broom lurched.

She looked to find the sporadic twigs of the tail smoking, licks of orange flame inching their way towards her, dancing with the flapping fabric of her cloak. Behind the broom, she gaped into the open maw of a fiery sphynx. Galloping along next to it were dragons, chimaeras, winged horses, and an erumpent. Their tongues were so hot they were blue and white.

Vaguely, Hermione caught Harry's swear as he too must have inspected their status.

"We're almost there, hold on!" He stressed.

Hermione let the diadem go, feeding it to the beasts on their heels, devouring everything in their way, only fueled bigger and higher.

"What?! No!" The broom faltered as he attempted to turn back for the Horcrux, but it was too late. The tail had all but disintegrated, and they smashed through the door and into the stone wall opposite a second later.

* * *

At first, Hermione thought the shaking of the castle walls was her own ever present trembling. After she blinked a few times, though, the ringing dulled to the even stomping of what seemed like the marching of a couple dozen giants.

Sitting up, her head spun. The stones making up the walls around her were the right shape and color, but they were too tall and too flat - they lacked the cornerless curve she'd become accustomed to seeing. As her sight focused, she noticed she was nose to wand with a smooth, elegant wand, not the rugged, hooked one she expected.

Following the length of Draco's wand up to his hand and face, she startled. Instead of pale blond hair, slate grey eyes, and pointed aristocratic features, she was presented with Harry's enraged, emerald eyes and messy, dark hair. If he didn't look like murdering her, she would have smiled at seeing him for the first time in what felt like a long, long year.

But it had been two hundred-and-sixteen days, she recalled, the memory of Draco informing her of that bubbling up in her mind. They had been crawling through the tunnel under the Whomping Willow when he apologized.

And this _wasn't_ the first time she'd seen Harry in those two hundred-and-sixteen days. Just minutes ago, she'd hugged him. She remembered that.

So why was he glaring at her with Draco's old wand clenched in his hand?

"How could you? Who are you?" Harry seethed.

"Harry, it's me, Hermione. That was Fiendfyre - cursed fire - it's one of the substances that destroy Horcruxes! I'd never suggested using it before because it's so dangerous - nearly impossible to control-" Her rambling was choked off with a suffocating embrace. Harry had moved so suddenly she hadn't even had time to respond.

"Merlin, I've missed you. I'm so sorry, Hermione. I didn't want to leave you, but Bellatrix had you and we only had so much time and I had to get Griphook out. And then I was going to come straight back with Dobby to get you, but Bellatrix's blade got him, and by the time the funeral was over and we organized a rescue mission, you had been moved. I kept thinking, 'What if I'd done this different or that.' And it was all my fault for saying Voldemort's name and being so obsessed with the Elder Wand to begin with. And we still had Horcruxes to hunt-" Harry cut himself off with a sudden jerk, turning to glance at Draco, who, Hermione now saw, was wrapped in another _Incarcerous_ and being held by Ron.

Ron's freckled face was drained of all colour. He was perfectly still from shock, and his jaw hung ajar.

"Draco!" Hermione jolted towards him, waving her wand unsteadily to undo the binds.

Fury snapping Ron to attention, he rounded on Hermione.

"What are you doing?" he blustered.

"Draco's on our side now!" She wailed. "He's the one who rescued me. It took awhile, but we escaped, and Bellatrix is trapped in her own tower now! He gave me his wand and came here with me to help!"

Harry and Ron might not have believed her if it hadn't been for the protective way she placed herself between them.

The sound of an explosion followed by the crumbling of stone echoed throughout the castle. A stampede of pearlescent headless horsemen rocketed past them.

"He can't have given you his wand, though," Harry finally said. "I took it from him that day at Malfoy Manor." He demonstrated the authenticity of his statement by showing it to her.

"That's right, Scarhead! I suggest you give it back!" Draco snarled, wriggling against his binds.

"Uh-uh! Winners keepers, losers weepers!" Harry sang childishly, snatching the wand back out of his rival's reach.

Hermione huffed in frustration. "We don't have time for this. We all have wands now, and we need to find Voldemort's snake. That should be the last one, right?" She released Draco and promptly took his hand in equal parts to showcase her stance on his trustworthiness and to hold him back from retaliating himself.

Harry coughed and looked down in reprimand. "Yeah," he muttered.

"Okay. Good. Now that's settled. Where's the sword? And how do we get to the snake? Any plans?"

* * *

It turned out Harry did have a plan. And Hermione loathed it.

"But I just got back! You can't go out there alone! We're a _team_," she cried, clinging to the front of his jumper.

Harry had evidently been present for the last moments of Professor Snape's life, something Draco had stiffened, clenching his fists and jaw, to find out. Snape had gifted him several of his memories which, with his final breaths, he implored Harry to view.

During that eerie calmness when Hermione and Draco had first arrived, Voldemort had called a ceasefire, inviting Harry to martyr himself in the name of surrender and peace. Instead of submitting, Harry had raced to Dumbledore's office to use the Pensieve. The truth of Snape's loyalties was revealed, as well as the truth of Harry's connection to Voldemort.

After defeating the diadem Horcrux, he intended to sacrifice himself to leave them the chance to truly overcome Voldemort.

Hermione was inconsolable.

"But what will I do without you?"

Harry's arms surrounded her in his comfortingly awkward embrace. "You're a survivor," he said, his chin tucked on her shoulder where he used to avoid her mane of curls. "You'll survive." He sounded so confident in her that she felt her soul shatter.

No one had believed in her like Harry. He saw only the best of her, and he always reminded her of her strength and courage. To think that would just be… gone. Forever.

Hermione bit her lip to clamp down on the whimper that threatened to escape.

"Malfoy," Harry spoke up, his voice thick, "if you hurt her-"

"I'll be no better than you, Potter." The sneer in his tone softened, though. "I've already made that mistake, and I'll take care of her for you."

Hermione finally pulled away, sniffing, wiping her nose, and scowling.

"I can take care of myself. No need to be chauvinistic about it all."

A brief moment of levity surrounded the four like a bubble.

And then it popped with the explosion of the wall at their side.

As wrapped up as they'd been, they'd forgotten a battle was waging in the castle.

They were scattered with shrapnel and rubble, protecting their heads and their wands as they were flung out and away from each other. The sound was deafening, leaving Hermione's ears ringing and disoriented.

As she hefted herself back to her feet, shakily rolling a heavy stone off her legs, Draco rushed back to her. Using magic, he cleared a way to her.

Separated, Hermione barely heard Harry's shout.

"Don't forget! You have to kill Nagini!"

As the dust settled, bright coloured flashes of curses and spells strobed through the gaping opening in the wall. Draco and Hermione were pulled into the fray of battle.

* * *

Hermione had lost track of time. Her world had narrowed to dodge, _Protego_, stun, run. She'd faced countless Death Eaters. Giant spiders had carried Hagrid off into the Forbidden Forest. Actual giants, three times the size of Grawp stomped on the lawns of Hogwarts. The despondent chill of Dementors ringed the edge of battle, feasting on the despair and pain and fear of the soldiers indiscriminately.

Slowly, the haze of fighting lifted as she realized their opponents were retreating. Draco pulled her quaking body against his, comforting her in the reprieve. During the battle, they had stuck together but somehow made it out the front doors.

Draco found a still intact section of the main stairs leading up to the castle's entrance and led them there to sit and recover. He transfigured them cups out of debris and filled them with water. Hermione was hungry, but there was nothing for it at the moment.

They were disturbed a short while later by a familiar face.

"Hermione, Malfoy." Neville nodded to them, plopping next to the witch exhaustedly. "Glad to see you've finally pulled your head out of your arse and joined the right side."

Draco grimaced at the dry dig but didn't retaliate. They were all too bone tired to squabble amongst themselves. Instead, Draco refilled his cup and passed it over Hermione to Neville, who took it with an astonished lift of his eyebrows.

They sat in silence, merely taking comfort from each other's presence, an odd sense of peace blanketing them in a setting of such destruction and chaos.

Then a mob appeared out of the forest. Hagrid walked in the center, weeping, next to Voldemort and carrying a strange bundle in his arms. Dread seeped down Hermione's spine, and she stood, taking a nervous step forward, towards the crowd.

"Harry?" She choked, denial swelling her throat until she couldn't swallow. She knew this had been his plan, but her mind warred against it. Cotton filled her ears, and she didn't notice the gathering that flocked around her, drawn by the commotion.

A warm hand anchored her in place, but grief rose like the tide, drowning her as she struggled to tread water.

Neville was suddenly before Voldemort, and then the Sorting Hat was wrenched over his head and lit up with flames.

Pandemonium erupted at that display. Too many bodies moved and bumped until she lost sight of her best friend's body. Somehow Neville retrieved the Sword of Gryffindor, and then, with a great strike, he cleaved Nagini's head from her body. The snake's body writhed and coiled until, at last, it grew still in death.

Voldemort's wrath was unbearable. His scream of fury pierced Hermione's heart and froze her blood in her veins.

Then, Harry appeared out of thin air, flinging his Invisibility Cloak off his shoulders. There was a standoff between him and Voldemort.

As they stood facing each other, Hermione counted her heartbeats. They were coming way too fast, but she couldn't slow them against the intensity that left her rooted to her spot. Suddenly, Harry and Voldemort raised their wands at the same time. A jet of glowing red smashed against a stream of bright green. When the magicks collided, the green curse bounced back at Voldemort and his wand flew gracefully up and into Harry's hand.

Voldemort's body collapsed to the ground. He was dead. And it was over. And Hermione and Harry and Ron and Draco were all alive.

Draco gathered her up into his arms and kissed her. He pulled her face to his and pressed his lips to hers and held her to him like he couldn't bear to be parted from her. He slanted his lips and brushed his tongue against the seam of her mouth. When she let him in, he delved deeper desperately. Hermione could hardly keep up, but the relief and joy she felt poured out of her and into his open mouth. She tasted his love and devotion and contentment and passion.

When Draco broke away, chest heaving against hers as he gasped for breath, he ran his fingers from her shoulders up her neck to her sheared hair.

"I like your hair like this," he murmured. "You look… free."

* * *

After their wedding, they closed off the drawing room and the largest dining hall and planted rampion along the long drive from the gates to the front door of Malfoy Manor. And they lived for a long time afterwards, happy and contented.


End file.
